


Snuff Film Hero

by Lightning_Skies



Series: When Wolves Fly [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Dead But Not Gone Character Death, Gen, M/M, Show level violence, Stiles centric, Teen Wolf Big Bang, pre-stisaac, teenwolf_bb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-15
Updated: 2014-02-15
Packaged: 2018-01-04 16:50:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 28,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1083377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lightning_Skies/pseuds/Lightning_Skies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“People once believed, that when someone dies, a crow carries their soul to the land of the dead. But sometimes, something so bad happens, that a terrible sadness is carried with it and the soul can’t rest. Then sometimes, just sometimes the crow could bring that soul back to put the wrong things right.”</p>
<p>In an alternate ending to S2, Gerard tortures and kills Stiles, Erica and Boyd the night of the game. A month later, Stiles crawled out of his grave stronger, darker and angrier. He came back to take his revenge on the hunters of Beacon Hills and will go straight through anyone who gets in his way. While he cuts a bloody swath through Beacon Hills, the Pack and Scott must decide what side they stand on and Allison and Chris must decide if they are more faithful to family or the Code.</p>
<p>Based on J. O'Barr's 'The Crow'</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Teen Wolf Big Bang over on [LJ](http://teenwolf-bb.livejournal.com)
> 
> Check out the awesome art -  
> [Paradigm-shift (DreamWidth)](http://paradigm-shift.dreamwidth.org/15342.html)  
> [Radlilim (AO3)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1466869)

Stiles woke up in a shallow grave, deep in the woods. He gasped for air, filling his collapsed lungs for the first time in weeks and coughed sharply. He was almost naked, clad in nothing but his boxers. His pale, clammy skin was liberally smeared with ash as well as blood and he was half buried in cold mud. It nipped at his skin like frostbite, each breath was fire burning through his lungs as his atrophied muscles spasmed and cramped. Everything hurt. The deep shadows of the Beacon Hills Preserve in the middle of the night were near blindingly bright, searing at his unfocused eyes. He screamed in pain as he scrabbled through the dirt, desperate to get away from the torment overwhelming all of his senses at once. The silence of the woods deafened him as a whirling nebula of sparks went off like fireworks behind his clenched eyelids.  
  
He adjusted slowly, his frantic heaving screams softening to pained sobs as he continued to feel around in confusion. One slender hand caught on something soft and he opened his eyes to see a hank of grimy blonde hair tangled around his long fingers. His eyes slowly traced the whirling strands up to where they obscured a pale face. He gently brushed the hair away and gasped into cloudy, death filmed eyes as memories assaulted his mind.

> _\--"Y'know what you're doing right now that's kinda funny? You're only looking in my eyes."--_  
>  _\--"That's funny?"--_  
>  _\--"Well, yeah. Because it's that kind of look that you're trying not to look anywhere other than my eyes. But you want to, don't you? You want a nice, long, hard look."--_  
>  _\--"Not really, no."--_  
>  _\--"Oh. So, it's just my eyes?"--_  
>  _\--"Yes. You have beautiful eyes."--_  
>  _\--"I have beautiful everything."--_  
>  _\--"And a new found self confidence. Congratulations, Erica."--_

 "Erica…" He rasped through his still raw throat. She had been stripped to her underwear, just like him, but as he gently lifted her out of the muck he realized that she had been cut in half, viscera hanging loose, missing everything below the waist. He grasped blindly in the muddy trench for her other half but was thrown into another vision as his hand brushed cold flesh.

> _\--"I said fifty."--_  
>  _\--"Really, I… I remember twenty. I dunno. I have a really good verbal memory and I remember twenty. I remember that distinct 'taw' Sound. Twa-enty."--_  
>  _\--"I said fifty. With a 'fu' sound. Hear the difference? If you can't I could demonstrate some other words with the 'fu' sound."--_  
>  _\--"Uh. No, no, no. I think I'm recalling it now. Maybe I just got it confused with… fu-oor-ty."--_  
>  _\--"…"--_  
>  _\--"C'mon, Boyd. Have you seen the piece of crap jeep that I drive?"--_  
>  _\--"You seen the piece of crap bus that I take?"--_

 "Boyd." He quickly pushed away the wet sludge burying the larger man and laid him out next to Erica. He had been bisected as well and his torso was naked. More digging and he had found all of their parts and laid them out next to each other. They looked so small and young with their nudity and injuries. He knelt in the mud staring with blank eyes at their bodies as he tried to remember what had happened.

> _\--"I'm fine. yeah, aside from the not sleeping, the jumpiness, the constant, overwhelming, crushing fear that something terrible is about to happen."--_  
>  _\--"It's called hypervigilance. The persistent feeling of being under threat."--_
>
>>   
> _\--"And what if it just gets worse? What if it's agony now and then... and then it's just Hell later on?"--_  
>  _\--"Then think about something Winston Churchill once said: 'If you're going through Hell, keep going.'"--_
>>
>>>   
> _\--"Mankind." That word should have new meaning for all of us today. We can't be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interests. Perhaps it's fate that today is the Fourth of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom... Not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution... but from annihilation. We are fighting for our right to live. To exist."--_
>>>
>>>>   
> _\--"It's going to be bad isn't it? I mean, like people screaming, running for their lives, blood, killing, maiming kind of bad?"--_  
>  _\--"Looks like it."--_
>>>>
>>>>>   
> _\--"You have a knack for creating a vivid picture Mr. Stilinski. Let me paint one of my own. Scott McCall finds his best friend bloodied and beaten to a pulp. How does that sound?"--_

 Stiles remembered. He flinched as he remembered the fists raining down onto him, the wet crack of his head thumping into the concrete floor each time he was knocked down. He remembered the point where he stopped being able to lift himself again, head spinning and body aching. He remembered the taunts of the hunters that followed Gerard's insane leadership as they stripped Erica and Boyd to their underwear so that they could play with their wolfsbane knives and tasers without obstruction. He remembered how Boyd was so stubbornly quiet as they beat him, but screamed and yelled as loud as Erica when they grew bored with his stoicism and moved on to her. They'd loved that.  
  
He remembered the point when one of the hunters decided to see what would happen to a human hooked up to the electric prison they'd designed for wolves. His screams echoed into the dark woods as he remembered the sizzling sound and the smell of burning meat. He retched as he remembered the cold horror of breaking through the seizing pain to realize that it was his own flesh he could smell burning. The torture had lasted for hours. They hadn't even bothered to ask any questions. It was all fun and games for them. He remembered when the torture stopped, all three teens too injured, exhausted and broken, both physically and mentally, to react anymore no matter what they were subjected to. The hunters dragged them out to a black SUV and haphazardly piled the trio on a tarp like inconvenient garbage that might leak something smelly on the car interior. They drove out to the woods on the far side of the preserve, miles from town and even farther from the Hale's property.  
  
Stiles had been forced to watch as Gerard gleefully took his sword to first Erica and then Boyd, he watched what light was left go out of their eyes. One by one, Gerard strung them up and cut them in half as if they were nothing but rogue Omegas. He watched the hunters kick the bodies into a hastily dug pit and he locked eyes with the evil old man as he was lifted and left to hang, the cold metal cabling cutting painfully into his wrists.

> _\--"It seems Mr. Stilinski that your best friend cares more about Jackson than he does for your life. The time has come and gone for any last minute heroics and I don't see anyone trying to stop me. You are not even a wolf and yet, here you are, one more pathetic Omega, unloved, packless and alone, like those two beasts. A traitor to your true species. I am only doing my sworn duty to put you out of your misery. Do you have any last words, Mr. Stilinski? ...No? I suppose we finally taught you to respect your betters quietly with that broken jaw. Goodbye, Mr. Stilinski."--_

Stiles clutched at his stomach at the vivid sense memory of the sword cutting through him- a line of fire followed by a seeping cold that leeched away his strength and dragged him into the darkness. He hunched over himself and sobbed as the enormity of what had happened hit him. Beacon Hills had claimed more victims. He was a fucking statistic, a black mark against his father's ability to protect the town. Cold hate against the hunters bubbled up in his stomach. He ran his fingers over the pale but smooth skin on his stomach, it was whole and unmarked. What was he?  
  
A bird's screech brought him out of his shock and he turned to find a large black crow staring at him from a pile of abandoned clothing, dumped next to the grave… his grave. As he stumbled over, the bird flew to a low hanging branch in the tree over their grave. Digging through the abandoned evidence of three young lives lost, he ignored his broken and bloody lacrosse gear until he found a pair of black jeans and a large leather jacket. The jeans were obviously Erica's, they fit tight over his legs and wouldn't button all the way, and the jacket had been Boyd's, it engulfed him entirely. He wasn't in any way fashionable but it made him feel closer to them, his companions in death, as he ran his hand down the worn leather, marred by multiple arrow holes. He fingered the torn leather and the hate swelled even farther, cold tingles of pure determination flowed from his center down to the tips of his fingers erasing the last of his pain and making him stand straighter.  
  
Feeling a little more stable, he stared up at the crow and the bird peered calmly back, tilting it's head one way and then the other, assessing him. Stiles held his breath for a moment, falling into the abyss of those beady black eyes, but the moment was broken when the crow turned its head and pecked hard at the tree's trunk. He stared at the tree uncomprehendingly for a moment before realization crashed over him. They had been buried among the roots of a Rowan tree. Rowan, known colloquially to some as the mountain ash. He laughed bitterly, Gerard hadn't wanted them to ever be found. None of the wolves would have been able to come within 100 yards of a living Rowan tree, and this deep in the woods it would have been nearly impossible for his dad to find him, no matter how dedicated the search teams were.  
  
The crow flew to another tree, farther away from the makeshift grave and croaked at him, urging him on, trying to lead him into the woods. With one last look at the two silent bodies, Stiles clasped their hands together and followed the crow. He found himself moving with incredible speed and agility through the woods, sure footed despite his bare feet. He could see perfectly in the dark and found that if he concentrated he could also see through the crow's eyes. He effortlessly leapt over logs and roots with Boyd's jacket flapping behind him like wings. He laughed with abandon, forgetting himself and enjoying the feeling of life flowing through him once again. All too soon his laughter ceased as the trees ended and he found himself on the shoulder of the road looking out over town.  
  
He stood at the edge of the woods, unsure of taking that last step back to civilization, back to the place where he'd lived his life. The crow soared over his head and continued into downtown Beacon Hills. Steeling himself he took first one step out onto the pavement, and then another- soon he was running again, following his guiding spirit.

* * *

Alan Deaton was a man who delighted in upholding an image of the all-knowing, all-seeing mystic advisor to the myriad lost souls of Beacon Hills. He had various legitimate magical tricks up his sleeves, but he found the simplest solutions were often the most useful. As the go-to man for hunters, wolves and those stuck in the crossfire between, he found it advantageous to have motion detectors installed in his office and he always set the alarms to alert him at home rather than sending a signal to the overworked, under-informed police department whenever someone decided to break in. As it was, he had one arm sliding into his coat and was walking out the door with keys in hand before he was even fully awake enough to consciously register the sound of the alarm. Long years of experience had taught him that nothing good happened in this town at this time of night.  
  
When he arrived the first thing he noticed was that the glass of the outer door had been shattered messily. His intruder couldn't have been Scott, he had made sure that his assistant knew how to enter from the back without breaking anything. Deaton's boots crunched through the glass as he moved to reset the alarm. The overhead light in the reception area blew out when he flipped the switch and the one in the office flickered weakly and cast shadows everywhere. He knew someone was there, or had been, the mountain ash barrier was open. He was always meticulous about keeping it closed because he had too many books and easily abused materials of power in his office to leave it unprotected during off hours. At first glance the office had looked empty, but once his eyes adjusted to the darkness he noticed the dirty figure huddled in on itself in the corner.  
  
He flicked on the high powered examination light and angled it to illuminate the dark corner. He was expecting many things- the pack was not as careful as they could be, often taking their advanced healing for granted. In his experience, supernatural ability made the fundamental teenage belief in their own invincibility exponentially worse. Derek in particular had the terrible habit of throwing himself claws first into situations that required more finesse and he didn't even have the excuse of being an impetuous teenager. Deaton was expecting many things, and wouldn't have been surprised to see any number of people, he was not, however, expecting what he found.  
  
"Stiles?"  
  
There was no response, but the teen curled himself tighter around his knees and visibly shook. "Stiles. It's Doctor Deaton. Can you hear me?"  
  
"Doc?" The face that looked up at him was too pale by far but the only reaction Alan showed was a slight widening of his eyes and tightening of his lips. He crouched down to be level with the young man, making sure to keep back far enough that he didn't seem a threat; years of soothing frightened and injured animals had given him an edge when it came to projecting calm.  
  
"Stiles, you've been missing for a month. The pack and your father have been worried about you. Scott has been working night and day with both human and wolf search groups to find you."  
  
"Too late. I'm dead." Stiles unfolded himself in an uncharacteristically smooth movement and began to pace the confines of the small examination room in agitation. With a flutter of wings, a crow Alan hadn't noticed in the dark hopped up to sit on the young man's shoulder. "Have been since the night of the game. He cut Boyd and Erica in half and then he did the same to me."  
  
Alan's heart sank for the young man in front of him as he watched the bird and teen both cock their heads at him in the same way as they watched him cautiously. He was obviously already feeling the instinctual connection to the bird. "Oh, Stiles. I had hoped nothing like this would happen. Gerard's war mongering ways should never have been allowed to affect your generation. This is a conflict years in the making and you should never have gotten caught up in it."  
  
Eerie eyes, that were much darker and deeper than they should have been, focused on him intently as Stiles leaned forward. The bright examination light over the steel table cast severe shadows over his face. "You know what I am."  
  
"I do." Unnerved by Stiles' intensity, the vet backed away a step. His experience was with living creatures, Stiles was now a creature of death and was far out of his area of expertise.  
  
"You once called me a Spark. What happens when a Spark is extinguished? Is it all just Ash?" Nimble fingers picked through the neatly organized collection of magical herbs and settled on the mountain ash. Stiles deftly twisted off the top, pooled the ash in his palm and allowed it to sift through his fingers like it had a lifetime ago at the rave. He watched the powder drain out of his hand into a small pile on the table and then smeared his hands through it half expecting it to resist his movement now that he was a creature of the night. "Am I evil now? A monster?"  
  
The crow on his shoulder squawked a reprimand.  
  
"Oh, Stiles. No. Where there is light, there is also darkness, but that does not make the night evil. You are a part of the darkness now, a vengeful spirit, but you are not evil, never that. Although you are a creature of incredible rarity, you are no more unnatural than Scott or Derek. There is a legend told of your kind. 'People once believed, that when someone dies, a crow carries their soul to the land of the dead. But sometimes, something so bad happens, that a terrible sadness is carried with it and the soul can’t rest. Then sometimes, just sometimes the crow could bring that soul back to put the wrong things right.' The universe is trying to correct a wrong. You have a purpose here. There's a reason why you've been brought back, Stiles. I suspect you will be drawn to your purpose and feel compelled to complete it. Do you know what it is?"  
  
"To find the people who did this to us. To make them pay." Stiles whispered as he ran his ash covered fingers down his face, creating a smudged line from forehead to cheek over each eye. Alan watched in fascination as ancient instinct took hold of this young man that could have been so much in life, dead too soon and proving his potential in an incredibly unforeseen way.  
  
"Life and death are based in balance. Life leads to death and often death leads to rebirth. The beginning is the end is a new beginning. Do you see? Death is natural. Everything that lives will die some day, but sometimes it is forced, early and wrong. Sometimes people will die who were never meant to, not yet. Their deaths can throw off the whole cycle, and so the universe seeks to correct itself, restore equilibrium as it were. You weren't supposed to die that night, Stiles. I suspect none of you were." There was nothing written in any of his books about this phenomenon, it was just a myth whispered quietly, reverently, from one generation to another. It was both an incredible gift to be present to witness the natural tides of life and death that ebbed and flowed through the young spirit as well as heartbreakingly tragic that this avatar of the primordial powers was created from someone he had known. Alan suspected that if his life had continued on it's proper path, Stiles would have been someone he watched over and guided in the arts.  
  
Stiles absently ran his fingers over his lips, darkening their color with the Rowan soot, donning his war paint like generations of spirits had before him. "What happens to me when I finish what I am supposed to do here?"  
  
"You go back."  
  
Two pairs of eerie eyes fastened on Alan with laser sharp focus, swirling with all the darkness inherent in knowing death intimately. Stiles was perfectly, dangerously still in a way he had been incapable of in life. "And what if I don't want to go back?"  
  
"You don't have a choice, Stiles. You are no longer alive and you can't stay here or you will lose your purpose and lose control. The wolves need an anchor to maintain their humanity and you are much the same. Your anchor here is justice, a balancing of the scales, and once that purpose is completed you won't have anything tying you to this world, you will fade back into death. If you fight it, you will be in direct opposition to the natural order and you WILL become a monster."  
  
"With great power comes great responsibility." Stiles quoted with a small smile that was enhanced by the lines of ash at the edges of his mouth, but still failed to reach his eyes. Without another word he turned and stalked out of the office, leather jacket flaring behind him.  
  
Alan Deaton was a great believer in balance, but he was still left with a heavy heart. He looked down at the ashy likeness of a bird that had been smeared onto his table. "Unfortunately, yes."


	2. Chapter 2

Steve Royer and his hunting partner, Victor Brice had been in town for over two months now and they were starting to get itchy feet. Normally, they would roll into a town, systematically put down all of the goddamn dogs in a week, two if there were any strays, and then move on. They still owed Gerard Argent for getting them off that murder charge a few years back. Argent wasn't a man that allowed debts to go unpaid, so they were dutifully playing this one by his rules, but that didn't mean they liked that it was taking so long.  
  
"All'm saying is that we know who they are and where they live." Steve slurred into his cheap beer. His elbow knocked into an empty as he leaned on the bar's dirty booth table for stability, forcing the other man to catch it before it could crash to the floor. "Should just burn them out. Argent's'v done it that way before. Heard it worked ree~al good."  
  
"Gerard wants to wait, so we wait." Vic had heard this argument repeated more and more often in the last week. He traced his finger through the condensation on the empty bottle in his hand. He never drank during a job, which made his mood even worse, long term sobriety wasn't something he enjoyed. He was growing just as tired of Steve's whining as he was of waiting to kill the dirty beasts. Any longer and he wouldn't care which he shot so long as he got some release. It irked him something terrible to let the monsters just roam around polluting the world. They should be put down fast and hard whenever they were found, not observed and followed. "This is the pack that killed his daughter and daughter in law. He's probably just biding his time to give them maximum pain."  
  
"Not like that bitch, Chris. Had to put down his own wife and still wants to follow the goddamn code and only take the Alpha." Steve snorted. "Not like we wouldn't be tracking the others down in a few months anyways. Fuckin' Omegas. Kill 'em all at once and then you don't have to come back to clean up later. Wouldn't mind a piece of his daughter though. Chickie's got legs for miles. No tits, but if I managed to knock 'er up I'd be the next head of the Argent fucking family. Hunter royalty. King Steve's got a nice ring to it."  
  
"The Argents are matriarchal you idiot. The women are in charge. She'd have you by the short and curlies before you could get near her."  
  
The slovenly older man snorted, messily chugging the rest of his beer and belching loudly. "Tell that to Gerard. He's the one giving all the orders, pulling all the strings. Less of a hassle if you just let girls think they're in charge. Then they don't bitch at you 'bout every little thing. I'd let little Allison know she ain't the boss o' me, just lemme get her in a bed. Hell, I'd do her in my truck."  
  
Vic gave up on the disgusting ramblings of the drunk and grabbed his lighter, heading for the door. "I'm going for a smoke."  
  
"Don't get bit, Brice!" Steve called after him and laughed obnoxiously before frowning at his now empty drink.  
  
The heavy industrial door slammed behind Vic as he stepped out of the ugly little dive into a side alley. He glared at the garbage strewn alley in disgust. The whole thing smelled awful, baking in the sun all day and rotting all night. He hated everything about this fucking town, dogs, garbage, bars, other hunters and all. After this bullshit was over he was going solo for a while. Vic swore under his breath in frustration as he flicked his lighter repeatedly trying to get the fucking thing to spark.  
  
"Hey, man. You need a light?" A young voice called out from down the other end of the alley, the voice echoing a little against the brick walls.  
  
"I don't hang out with kids. Fuck off."  
  
"You may not hang out with kids, but you have no problems torturing them and then cutting them in half, do you?" Vic looked up from fumbling with his zippo to squint in the dim light at a pale, grubby looking teen wearing nothing but a leather jacket and jeans standing right in front of him, his dirt streaked face hovering barely a foot away. He stumbled back in surprise. How the fuck did the kid move that fast. "Hello, Brice. Remember me?"  
  
"You're one of those goddamn dogs aren't you. Running around half naked in the woods. Fuck Gerard's orders to wait." He smoothly drew his gun and shot the little shit right in the chest. "Have some wolfsbane, Fido."  
  
The sickly looking teen clutched dramatically at his chest where the bullet hit. "Ow! Brice you say such hurtful things. Gets me right in the heart."  
  
"How are you still standing?" Vic shot him twice more but the kid barely flinched. Those long fingered hands lifted the jacket back to show that the bullet holes dotting the thin chest had vanished. Not even an Alpha wolf healed that fast, especially if the bullets were coated in wolfsbane.  
  
"1 - I'm not a werewolf, 2 - You already killed me, so that was a little redundant and unnecessary." The kid flicked his fingers up one at a time as he stalked forward, matching Vic step for step as he backed into the alley wall. As the freak stepped into the light cast by the bar's windows Vic got a good look at his face. It was smeared with ash like a fucking mime, but he recognized the features.  
  
"You! You're that little bastard we grabbed at the school. But… you're dead. We cut you in half. We fucking BURIED YOU!"  
  
"Give the man a gold star. You're a hunter, Brice. Dead man walking can't be the strangest thing you've ever seen, and let's be honest, you only half assed the burial. It wasn't exactly an epic hollywood scene of me clawing my way out of a deep grave, Kill Bill style." The hunter stared at him in shock, grunting in pain as the twig of a teen shoved him hard against the wall of the bar with all the force of a linebacker. Stars burst across his vision as the back of his head bounced off the brick and a forearm pressed into his throat, choking him. "Tell me, Brice. Do you remember what happens when you subject a human being to the same voltage hunters use to stop a wolf's healing? You decided to find out didn't you." 

> _\--"Fucking race traitor. Do you hang around with them in the hopes you'll get the bite? Do you let them fuck you? I bet you'd like that, dirty little twink like you. Do you get off on being used, being the ugly little pack bitch? Does bestiality get you hot? Well, if you want to be one of them so much how about we try this… you can join them, all strung up pretty like. What do you think happens to a weak, pathetic little bastard like you when that much voltage runs through them? Think that'll get you 'hot'?"--_

"Being an inquisitive person myself I realized something. Scientific method says that you have to repeat an experiment to get accurate readings. How about this, I'll be Subject A and you can be Subject B."  
  
Vic watched in horror as the fucking _ghost_ reached up and grabbed the power lines running into the side of the bar and pulled them loose. The alley darkened suddenly without the glowing beer logos to light it up. Vic groped back to pull his trench knife from the sheath at the small of his back, but it was hard to do while he was pressed up against the wall. "Now you may experience an itching or burning sensation. I assure you it's perfectly normal. Don't be alarmed."  
  
Finally getting his knife loose, the hunter brought it up to strike the freak in the face. He never made it, dropping the blade with a gasp of pain as the sparking end of the power line was slammed deep into the meat of his stomach forcing him convulse wildly, losing control of his limbs. He scrabbled at the arm holding him against the wall, but his wildly clenching hands couldn't get any purchase against the loose leather sleeve. The lights of the neon signs above them blew out tube by tube as ungrounded electricity streamed into the building.  
  
When the hunter started to smoke and his clothing caught fire, Stiles finally stepped back, shaking the extra charge out of his hands. Electricity couldn't hurt him anymore, but it was an unpleasantly reminiscent feeling. The transformer mounted on the telephone pole behind him finally shorted out and blew, shooting sparks everywhere, but he ignored the pinpricks against his skin as he watched Victor Brice burn to death from the inside.  
  
"VIC!" The hunter's partner, Royer, shouted from the mouth of the alley. He charged Stiles with a knife drawn, but his drunken reflexes were too slow and the teen plucked the knife from his fumbling hands and stabbed it smoothly into his thigh, nicking the femoral artery. He would bleed out, but it would be slow. It was still more merciful treatment than he had given Erica and Boyd. Steve Royer was overly fond of his knives.

> _\--"They say there's more than one way to skin a cat. What do you say we test if that holds true for wolves too? Do you think if I started peeling pieces off of you, carving you up like a Thanksgiving turkey… do you think it would grow back? How deep do you think I'd have to cut till you stopped healing. We'll start with the skin, and if you grow that back we can move onto muscles one by one. I really want to see what happens if I peel all the meat off your bones. Do you think that would grow back?"--_

As Royer collapsed, Stiles leaned over him and growled, "Call Gerard."  
  
"Fuck you!" The drunk spit in his face defiantly. Stiles calmly wiped the saliva away and twisted the knife. The hunter reared back and shrieked in pain, suddenly regretting his love of serrated blades. It said a lot about the 'animal attacks' in Beacon Hills that no one in the bar bothered to come investigate the power loss and screams.  
  
"You are going to die either way, but I can still make this worse for you." He reached down to touch the knife hilt again, ready to prove his point. "So. Call. Gerard."  
  
"NO! No, I'll do it. I'll call." The hunter managed to drag one shaking hand away from where it was clutching at his injured leg and dug around in his pocket for his cellphone. He struggled through his contacts list, fingers slippery with blood. Stiles could faintly hear the ringing and click as the call connected, there wasn't even anything said on the other end before Royer had started rambling into the phone. "Vic is dead and I'm hurt bad. He came outta fucking nowhere and he's not one of the one's we've been watching-"  
  
"That's enough of that." Stiles wrenched the knife sideways, cutting all the way through the femoral artery and grabbed the phone as the hunter collapsed. He held it up for a moment, letting Royer's scream and dying sobs echo down the phone line as he quickly bled out. Once the hunter had gone quiet for the last time, he put the phone up to his own ear, ignoring the cooling blood that smeared on his cheek. "Two down, Gerard and I plan to improve my score before the end of the night."  
  
"Who is this?" The militant tone that came down the line would have sent a shiver of terror down Stiles' back if he was still capable of it. There was nothing but cold fury in his veins as he heard that voice for the first time since his death. Grim purpose filled his unbeating heart as he reveled in the fact that this man was his prey, his reason for being. He would taste Gerard Argent's blood before the night was over.  
  
" _'Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.'_ Come out and play, Argent. Come out and die." Stiles ended the call and dropped the phone on Royer's motionless body.  
  
He turned and walked away, ignoring the phone's shrill ring. Gerard never could let anyone else have the last word. He left behind the cooling bodies of his tormenters, one still slowly leaking blood and the other charred black and propped against a scorch mark in the shape of a bird.

* * *

Stiles landed on the roof of the Beacon Hills County Sheriff's Office with only a whisper of feathers, his bare feet slapping against the waterproofing tarpaper on the flat roof. He jumped up to crouch on the ledge overlooking his father's office and settled in to keep watch over his father, if just for a moment.  
  
The Sheriff was exhausted. He was hunched over in his desk chair staring into the bottle of whiskey he'd started keeping in his desk after working the Hale fire. It was against policy but no one on the force would blame him for trying to take the edge off of some of their recent cases. He couldn't help his morose spiral of thoughts as the victims of all the unsolved cases over the last few months paraded around in his head wearing Stiles' face and showing off their wounds. He hadn't even taken a sip from the bottle yet and already he was struck by the hazy thought of how much the golden fluid sloshing around in the bottle matched his son's eyes. Eyes he may never see again. He glanced up at the school photo he'd blown up and posted in the center of his cork board, surrounded on all sides by the broken threads of dead ends and leads that made so little sense they could have come straight from a horror movie. Stiles had been missing for a month now and the department heads were threatening to call it quits on the search if no new evidence came to light.  
  
By his own admissions during his mandatory interview, they cited Stiles' troublemaking, habits of lying and the slowly widening gap in their father-son relationship as the makings of a typical teen runaway. They didn't believe his vehement denials that Stiles would ever just LEAVE. That it wasn't what Stilinskis did, they were fundamentally incapable of giving up and giving in like that. The biggest problem with their family was that they never let anything go, they were too stubborn. He and his son would both grieve forever for his wife's death and they were unbelievably possessive of each other because of it. He had years of unnecessary heart healthy eating habits forced on him for just that reason. He wasn't allowed to leave Stiles and Stiles wasn't allowed to leave him. Stilinskis never left anyone behind, especially each other.  
  
His phone rang, and the Sheriff sighed, rubbing his eyes with one hand as he punched harshly at the speaker button with the other. He watched the whiskey slosh and swirl in reaction to how hard he'd slammed it down as he answered gruffly, "BHPD, Stilinski speaking."  
  
"Sheriff, Hardison just called in with a double 10-76 and a 10-25 down on Pendexter, out behind that crappy little bar the health inspector keeps shutting down. We're calling in all available units."  
  
The Sheriff traced a finger down the side of the bottle allowing himself a maudlin second to admire the color but put it back in the drawer, unopened. "I'm on my way."  
  
Stiles watched as his father strapped on his guns and badge and left the office. He continued watching until his father made his way across the parking lot to his cruiser, the sudden onslaught of red and blue light glinting off of his unblinking eyes as he watched his father drive away. That's all he could do. His father knew nothing of werewolves or hunters, it would break him to have Stiles back for a night only to lose him again. Stiles sat on the roof of the BHPD like a depressing gargoyle long after his father's siren had faded, before his attention was drawn to a vision the crow was sending him. It seemed that the Argents were on the hunt after his little tete-a-tete with Gerard.

* * *

"This night just keeps getting better and better." Isaac groused as he took a flying leap over a stream and crashed into some low growing branches on the other side.  
  
"Less talking, more running." Derek grunted behind him, grabbing him by the collar and dragging him out of the tangling greenery. "If you've got breath to run your mouth, you've got breath to run faster." Gunshots echoed through the woods as a chunk of bark exploded off a nearby tree only a few inches from where Isaac's shoulder had been.

The roar of ATVs followed them through the woods at breakneck speed. They continued their full tilt rush through the preserve, their feet pounding over pine needles and dirt as they focused on the distinctive whine of bullets whizzing by, closer each time.  
  
"I think I liked it better when they were passive aggressively ignoring us." Isaac continued. It was a bit sad that he had accustomed himself to being hunted through the woods. The whole thing was a common enough occurrence now that he couldn't seem to muster as much mind numbing terror, it was more a low buzz of exasperation tinged panic.  
  
"They weren't ignoring us. They were planning. I TOLD you this."  
  
"So, their big plan is to do exactly the same thing they've always done and chase us through the woods? Historically, that doesn't work well for them." No sooner had Isaac spoken when the thumping cadence of his footsteps was abruptly interrupted by the echoing sound of his foot hitting metal. He had triggered a well hidden foothold trap and its jaws quickly snapped closed around his ankle, taking him down hard with a scream of pain.  
  
Derek skidded to a stop and turned to help but Isaac had already wedged his hands in between the trap's teeth and was forcing it open. "I'm okay. I've got this. GO!"  
  
"You won't heal fast enough." Derek grabbed the trap and wrenched it apart, throwing the pieces in different directions. He knew he was right the second he was able to see the extent of the injury. The trap had shattered both lower leg bones into small fragments and with so many pieces it would take more time to heal than they had. He quickly threw Isaac's arm over his shoulder and half dragged him as Isaac hobbled as fast as he could.  
  
"I'm just slowing you down. It's you Gerard wants. Leave me. Maybe I'll get lucky and they'll kill me quickly." Isaac joked, but his eyes were full of fear. This was bad.  
  
"I'm not losing more of my pack. Not to them." Derek set his jaw mutinously and glared at Isaac for even suggesting it. There was another gunshot from much closer than before and Isaac shuddered, eyes wide with surprise, before falling limp. Derek twisted to catch the taller wolf's full weight before he could collapse.  
  
 **"ISAAC!"** He could still hear the younger were's heartbeat but it was accelerated and unsteady. The stink of wolfsbane and rot stung his nose as the poison began flowing through the beta's veins, eating away at his body.  
  
"That's not a choice you get to make, Alpha Hale." Gerard stepped to the forefront of his team as they fanned out around the downed wolves, their headlights trained on the wolves and blinding Derek's eyes with the harsh artificial brightness. He squinted in the direction of the approaching boots. "A good leader never makes promises he cannot keep, but then again, you've never been a good Alpha, have you. A good Alpha never would have bitten emotionally vulnerable teenagers and damned them to this life. You are nothing but the backup heir in what used to be a large family. You're nothing but a lowly Beta, never meant to be Alpha, desperately scrambling to control power, a pack and a territory that are much more than he can handle."  
  
"Better that than a murderer playing at following an honor code." Derek spit hatefully through his fangs, eyes burning red and claws extended. He shuffled back to keep all the hunters in his sights and crouched defensively over Isaac's unconscious body. There was a whistle of displaced air and the Alpha flinched back in pain as an arrow sprouted suddenly out of his shoulder, a second one in his thigh followed quickly. Allison stepped up behind her grandfather with a cold look on her face as she glared hatefully at the Alpha. She nocked another arrow and let fly, keeping their gazes locked the whole time. Derek grunted as it slammed into his gut.  
  
"We're not the murderers here." She accused harshly, readying a forth arrow. This one she trained on a spot right between his eyes.  
  
"We do follow the code, Derek. We'll take responsibility for the fact that you had to step up to the Alpha position unprepared because of my sister, but our culpability only extends so far, and you've crossed that line." Chris stepped into their formation as the men raised their weapons. "What happened to your family was a tragedy, but Kate paid for that. This is about your actions. You bit my wife. You are the reason she's dead. This situation is the reason the code exists. ' _Nous chassons ceux qui nous chassent._ '"  
  
There was nowhere Derek could move without leaving Isaac open to a kill shot. He was so tired of loosing his pack to Argents. He briefly wondered if he even had enough survival instinct left in him to move. He could probably save himself, but he would once again be losing everything. Could he find the strength to walk away from another destroyed pack?  
  
"Red rover, red rover, send Gerard right over." A familiar voice spoke from behind the firing squad, visibly startling some of them and breaking the tense scene. Many of the more jumpy hunters trained their guns on the new threat. Derek looked past the hunters to see Stiles standing there in the dark, bare chested and barefoot and looking like a mosh pit reject from a goth concert.  
  
"Stiles? Run, you idiot." Derek felt relief in the familiar swell of irritation at the sight of the annoying brat. He and Isaac had been out here with Scott combing the woods for the kid for over a month, even Peter had been coerced into helping and he waits until the goddamn hunters are about to kill them to be found. He hadn't even needed rescuing, he just strolled out of the woods like he was on a nature walk. The Alpha felt the edges of hysteria building in him. Of fucking course Stiles had waited until the worst possible time to show up, getting into trouble was the kid's sole purpose in life.  
  
Chris glanced at his father and felt a chill at the calculating look on Gerard's face as he assessed the young man. He noticed that his father's eyes returned again and again to trace the strange lines painted across the pale face. When it became obvious that his father wasn't going to make the first move, Chris stepped forward with his gun lowered. "Mr. Stilinski, I know you feel the need for unnecessary heroics, but you should really stay out of this one. I'm asking you to walk away peaceably. He's killed and there is nothing you can do to prevent this."  
  
"Nothing? I think you'd be surprised." A large black bird swooped down to land on Stiles' shoulder. Chris caught the glint of pure satisfaction that crossed his father's face but put it out of his mind as one of the hunters spooked and fired, setting off the rest.    
  
Due to his superior vision Derek was forced to watch it all in horrifying slow motion. He distantly heard Chris and Allison shouting to ceasefire, but they were ignored. Stiles' skinny body shook with the repeated impacts as he was riddled with bullets. There was a vacant look of shock on his face as he staggered backwards a step with the force of the assault, falling behind a nearby tree. The shots faded away quickly without a target.  
  
One of the hunters went to check the body but turned back to the others in shock, "He's gone!" The words had barely left his mouth when pale hands darted out from behind the tree and forced his head to turn even farther, breaking his neck and quickly dragged his body out of sight.  
  
"What is he?" Allison asked her father, but Chris looked just as shocked. She turned to her grandfather and caught the edge of something dark and scheming before Gerard's expression smoothed out.  
  
"Whatever he is, he's not human anymore. **SPREAD OUT! WE'RE DEALING WITH AN UNKNOWN THREAT! FIND HIM!** " Chris was surprised his father had chosen to divide their force. It was ironic but true that the most successful hunting tactic tended to be grouping into a pack. With the irregular rhythm of new clips sliding into place, the hunters scattered into the woods.  
  
There was a brief hush as they spread out, but then the gunfire and screaming started.  
  
Derek's focus was divided between his own pain and Isaac's slowing heartbeat, but he could still hear the sporadic screams, flesh on flesh impacts, snapping bones and bursts of gunfire as the hunters were taken down one by one. A skinny shadow darted through the farthest edges of the ATV headlights a few times, but didn't stay still long enough for the Argents to get a shot off. The smell of blood became stronger with each stint of frenzied activity. Finally, everything grew quiet.  
  
There was dead silence in the woods around them, even to werewolf ears. There were no heartbeats out there, just Isaac, Derek and the Argents. The peace held for a long moment but was broken when a battered body was flung into a tree right next to Allison with a sickening thud, making her heartbeat jump. The thing wearing Stiles' face followed after it, casually strolling out of the shadows with his hands shoved deep in his pockets.  
  
"Now that the kids have been put down to sleep we can talk like grownups."  
  
"What are you?" Chris trained his gun on Stiles as he kept coming closer and closer. Allison shot him but he ignored the arrow impaled in his leg as he stalked forward until his forehead pressed into the barrel of Chris's gun. "Would this even kill you?"  
  
"No," Stiles admitted, "Probably not." He waited for a moment but the greying hunter didn't seem inclined to actually shooting. Stiles backed off a bit and flicked the titanium barbs on the tip of the arrow Allison held in ready position against his neck. Her arm muscles flexed with the strain of holding her stance against someone she had considered a friend. Stiles dismissed both of the weapons trained on him and stared past them at Gerard, "There's not much that can hurt me now."  
  
"Mr. Stilinski, this is quite a surprise. The whole town has been in an uproar about your disappearance. I'm sure your father will be overjoyed to hear about your return."  
  
Stiles sneered at him harshly but spoke directly to Chris and Allison in an abrupt and matter of fact tone that had none of his usual energy. "You have no reason to be here. Victoria broke the code when she found out that Allison and Scott had continued to date secretly. She was killing him with wolfsbane smoke and Derek saved him. They were both delirious from the wolfsbane when he bit her. She broke the code, she drugged both Scott and Derek and she started the fight. Everything they did was in self defense. She is also the one who chose to end her own life, the bite didn't kill her. The Pack bears no responsibility for her death."  
  
There was silence for a moment as Chris and Allison processed this new version of events. Although they had no reason to trust Stiles' words, it rang with truth. Little things fell into place about Victoria's attitude before the rave and her never explained reason for even being there in the first place. Chris remembered when this same teen had opened his eyes about Kate's actions and knew in his gut that this was the truth.  
  
"Blood has been spilled, Mr. Stilinski. They killed my daughter and my daughter in law. They will be exterminated and we will have our revenge."  
  
"You know for a fact that they are innocent and still you bay for their blood? I really can't say that I'm surprised. The Argent family is a curse on this town. A poisonous cancer that destroys everything it touches. The Hales have been here in one form or another since Beacon Hills was founded and yet the area was stable until your family came. Since then the body count has skyrocketed. You are the monsters, more than the wolves ever have been. Kate got what was coming to her and Victoria deserved to be put down, because I can only imagine the horror of her with a wolf's abilities. I can think of at least one more Argent who would improve the world with his death."  
  
He turned to Chris and Allison, "Gerard will die for his many crimes tonight. You don't need to die for him, but if you stand in my way I will make it a whole set." Allison had broken through the haze of grief and hatred for a moment when thinking rose colored thoughts of Scott but snapped right back into militant mode with his words and shot him on reflex, but he just laughed.  
  
"There you go again. How do you say 'Violence is our answer to every situation, everything must die' in French. It suits your family much better. None of that crap about mercy and justice." Allison shot arrow after arrow into Stiles and he let her. When she had exhausted her quiver he swept his arm through the shafts bristling from his chest, brushing them away as he met her dark gaze with empty eyes. "Do you feel better now?"  
  
 **"WHAT ARE YOU?!?"** She screamed in frustrated rage, drawing a knife with her off hand and stabbing it into his chest.  
  
"I'm dead." He responded calmly, making her stumble back in shock. Her wide brown eyes watched in horror as the wounds shrank away to nothing without spilling a drop of blood. "Unjustly killed by an Argent, just like so many other innocents. You can't hurt what's already dead."  
  
"I don't believe you." She whispered holding her bow and knife defensively in front of her like a shield and backing up into her father. He steadied her with one hand as he kept his gun trained on Stiles with the other.  
  
"Yes, you do." He returned evenly, eyes flicking up to include Chris. "Stop lying to yourself. You know exactly what Gerard is capable of. You know that I went missing the same night Erica and Boyd did and no matter what you tell yourself, you know exactly what he did to them."  
  
"They deserved it!" She stated furiously, wiping away a tear. "They're part of Derek's pack."  
  
"They were innocent. I was innocent. Derek has always been innocent, each and every time your family has destroyed his."  He stalked forward as he spoke, crowding Allison and her father back and whispering the last words directly into her ear as she out a sob. "None of us had ever hurt anyone and you've killed so many of us." Stiles backed off abruptly, and the Argents realized that he had herded them away from the wolves and stood defending them. "Even if you don't believe me, you won't hurt them anymore tonight."  
  
There was a flutter of wings and the ATV headlamps went out, obscured by feathers, plunging the woods into darkness. When the light came back, Stiles and the wolves were gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't hate Allison... or me. She's still in that VERY bad place she was in during S2. This isn't me bashing, I think it's pretty canon accurate for her dark side.
> 
> Please Note - Random google search police codes were used 10-76 (DOA), 10-25 (Transformer Fire)


	3. Chapter 3

Derek was floating in a burning sea of pain. He could feel his body breaking down as the wolfsbane scorched through his veins killing him at a cellular level. His head swam and his gut churned in nausea as his whole body fought the infection and tried to heal. A voice broke through his pain, warped by the ringing in his ears but still familiar, "This is going to hurt." Which was ridiculous because he was already dying, what would more pain matter? He was proven wrong when he felt metal moving under his skin and he howled his pain to the sky when the barbed arrowhead ripped it's way out of his gut inch by bloody inch.  
  
He heard the heavy metal point of the carbon arrow hit the floor and pried one heavy eyelid open a crack to see Stiles bent over him, probing gently at the blackened veins spreading from the wound and examining the placement of the other two arrows critically. The Alpha realized that he was shirtless and propped up against the crumbling wall of his parent's house. His voice was a rough, pained rumble when he asked, "What happened to you?"  
  
"Oh, I don't know. What is it that has usually happened to a person with no heartbeat, Derek? ...I died." While his pain hazed brain reeled in shock over that announcement, Stiles reached for the arrow in his shoulder and braced him back against the wall with one hand.  He tugged at the deeply embedded arrow until it shifted from where the bone had begun to set around it. Derek seized with the pain and attempted to curl his body away but that cold hand held him pinned against the wall with a strength Stiles shouldn't have had. There was a wet crunching noise as delicate new bone spurs snapped and released their hold. The Alpha lost track of time as he was deluged with the fresh new pain layered over the ache of healing and the now familiar burn of poison in his bloodstream.    
  
"Wh'n?" Derek heard himself garble before his consciousness had completely returned. He grit his teeth and fought viciously against the threatening darkness taking over his vision as his stomach lurched in reaction to the pain. He couldn't even find the strength to differentiate between physical and emotional pain as his whole being mourned the loss of another pack member, someone else who had needed him and whom he had failed. He wanted nothing more than to avoid the world for a while and lick his wounds, both figurative and actual, or even better, just lay down and let the wolfsbane burn him up. He could never allow himself that relief though, he would only do what he had always done and struggle on. Stiles may have died but he was still here and that meant something was wrong.  
  
"The night of the championship game. Gerard's henchmen grabbed me right off the field when they cut the lights. I was beaten, tortured and cut in half, then thrown in a shallow grave, all before dawn." Stiles' tone was matter-of-fact, but Derek's vision grayed out completely and a loud ringing mercifully blocked his hearing as he was overwhelmed with agony. Gerard, it was always Gerard. Always the Argents. When his vision finally cleared, Stiles had the last arrow in hand.  
  
"You should have accepted the bite when I offered it. You might have been able to protect yourself." Stiles whirled quickly and his hand was a blur as the arrow shot towards Peter. The older wolf was surprised by the move, but managed to catch the shaft inches from his face. He bobbled it quickly between his hands as the wolfsbane stung his fingers, until he found a safe grip, pinching it's untreated fletching and holding it away from himself like a dead rat. He looked from the bloody, poisonous arrow to Isaac, who lay in a crumbled unconscious heap on the ratty, half charred couch, to where Stiles was still crouched over a sweating, trembling Derek. "I heard your howl."  
  
Stiles turned back to Derek's wounds. "Being a wolf didn't do Erica and Boyd any favors when Gerard demonstrated what he was going to do to me on them."   
  
Derek couldn't help the mournful whine he gave out for his lost betas, but tried to play it off as a reaction to standing up as he struggled to his feet, propping himself against the wall, hunched over his stomach wound. Stiles helped him straighten up and placed a hand over the quickly blackening wound. A shiver ran through Derek's whole body as a strange power passed over him and crawled under his skin. He watched in astonishment as the the rotting veins receded, flowing backwards and black ooze forced its way out of the wound. It was nothing he'd ever seen before, the wolfsbane was pulling itself out of his veins, as if his blood was flowing in reverse. A quick check showed the other wounds were healing quickly, already shiny, pink and healthy.  
  
Isaac was still out of it but his heart was steady and he didn't stink of rot. He smelled of healing. Knowing his last Beta would survive Derek relaxed minutely and turned to Stiles warily. "What are you?"  
  
"Nothing you need to worry about. Think of this as my unfinished business. I'm a creature of death. A spirit of vengeance, risen from the dead to right the wrongs committed against me in life."  
  
"…And what were those wrongs?" Derek tried with his usual lack of subtlety to angle his body between Stiles and Isaac as his claws slid into place.   
  
"Jesus, Derek. You and your constant guilt. This has nothing to do with you or the pack. I'm here for the hunters and I only let you see me because I couldn't let Gerard kill anyone else." His gaze softened on the Alpha. "You do realize that none of your family blames you for what happened and that all that bullshit about being in a better place is actually true. The only one still suffering from the fire is you. Even Peter is working on moving on. His version of moving on is hating the world, but that's still more healthy than hating himself like you do."  
  
Peter seemed surprised by that analysis, "And how would you know what I'm feeling."  
  
"Because I'm not stupid and I'm not human." Stiles made sure Derek was solidly propped against the wall and approached the older wolf, walking right up to him. "I can see into your mind Peter Hale. You are not stronger than me, you are not scarier than me, you cannot hurt me. You are not a threat. I am not an insecure teenager anymore. ADHD is based in brain chemistry. I don't have a single synapse firing right now. My neural net has gone dark and my brain chemistry has no bearing on my thoughts or actions. You no longer scare me or make me nervous."   
  
"Fear is based in the aversion to pain or death. I'm already dead and-" he grabbed the arrow from Peter and stabbed it straight into his bare chest letting the man watch up close as the bloodless hole didn't so much heal as disappear. "-pain's not really a big deal. Being jumpy and easy to startle requires fear and the ability to experience an adrenaline rush. I can do neither."  
  
"What I can do is read thoughts, memories, emotions. Scott told me about how you forced your memories of the fire into his mind." Stiles stepped right into Peter's personal space and laid his hands over his face, palms against his temples.  
  
"Now, Stiles. Let's not be too hasty here." Peter's eyes burned blue as he tried to turn his head away, but the spirit easily overpowered him.  
  
"Shut up for a second, Prokofiev. I'm not going to scramble your brains."  
  
"Always surprising me. I never took you for a Russian symphony enthusiast." The older man laughed but his eyes were wild and his body was rigid with tension. The blue of his eyes flickered between it's natural clear blue and glowing supernatural blue as he stared into the cold expressionless face of a ghost and felt the light touch against his mind.   
  
"I'm full of surprises." Stiles stepped away and looked him over. "So are you, apparently."  
  
Peter met his eyes, half lidded with bitter pain, but still full of angry challenge. "Find what we've always known was true, that I'm burnt and broken beyond repair?"  
  
"No, actually. I found a man who has had everything taken from him and who lost himself in the pain and grief." Stiles smiled and it was genuine but lacked the warmth of life. "I saw a man who has survived even the fire of his own madness and is rebuilding himself, different from before, but stronger."  
  
He turned to Derek, "This is my gift to you. You're both emotionally stunted idiots who need to actually talk shit out- claw it out, whatever, but I'm going to speed this along by decades. I've been in his head. He's not going to betray you again. He's as desperate for family and pack as you are, though he'll never admit it. He got his revenge and though I'd never trust him alone with whatever Argents survive the night, he's not out to be Alpha again. Actively doesn't want it in fact. He distrusts himself with that power as much as you distrust him."  
  
Derek was stunned but grateful for the information. It was exhausting to hate and be constantly wary of his last remaining family member. Whatever shreds of his heart had survived the fire just wanted to take comfort in the older man. It hurt to know that he couldn't just reach out and have family again.  
  
"Like I said. I am here to make right a wrong that was done to me. There are no secrets from Death. I can see into their minds and motivations. Any of them that truly believe in the code and have not taken innocent life or those who feel remorse are not my targets. The others will be judged." Stiles' dark eyes glinted in the low light. "I think we all know that I am going to kill a lot of people tonight. Consider this your courtesy call. Dead bodies are going to stack up in a very short amount of time. There's no Scooby mystery to solve in this round of what mysterious creature of the week is hunting in Beacon Hills. I'm telling you straight up that it is me and you need to stay out of it."  
  
He watched Derek carefully until the Alpha gave a short nod and relaxed his guard just enough to sit heavily on the floor and lean against the arm of the couch by Isaac's feet. With no threat to fight, exhaustion from his long night was taking it's toll and he was loosing energy fast, the emotional turmoil was quickly overwhelming him. Peter slouched against the wall, radiating as much lack of concern as he could muster while trying to hide how deeply Stiles's revelations had shaken him. Despite his contrived relaxation he watched Stiles intently, assessing and wary.  
  
"Scott told me that your anchor is anger. Well, mine is too, but instead of being anchored to my human side, I'm anchored to life. I am running on pure rage and willpower, and while it gives me incredible power now, it will also burn out quickly and I'll fade back into oblivion. Stay in tonight and by tomorrow it'll be over and I'll be gone."  
  
There was a groan and Stiles went to check on Isaac as he shifted and began to wake up, but there was an angry howl and he was thrown bodily away from the weakened Beta and into the crumbling wall. Scott stood there, sides heaving as he panted from running across town to answer Derek's howl. His claws and fangs were out and he choked on his snarls as he caught sight of who he had attacked.   
  
"Hey, Scotty."  
  
 **"STILES?!?"**  
  
Hearing that name, Isaac jolted to full consciousness, but when he went to stand and greet Stiles, Derek gently grabbed his ankle and kept him down. He met Isaac's questioning look with a serious look of his own before shaking his head at him and continued holding his Beta out of the confrontation, his hand serving as both a command of restraint and a much needed source of comfort. They had survived the Argents by a slim furry hair tonight, but his Beta was about to find out that not everyone in the pack had the same luck.  
  
Scott was running his hands over Stiles checking for wounds and sniffing for blood. "Where were you? What happened? Are you alright? We looked everywhere. Your dad has been going crazy." His nose wrinkled at the stench of wolfsbane, gunpowder and several different splashes of blood, none of which were Stiles'. His own scent was faint, as if he weren't really there and it was overlaid with strong hints of the missing Betas. "Is that Boyd's jacket?"  
  
That last one caught him off guard and he cocked his head in confusion like the puppy he was. Stiles smiled at him sadly. "No, Scott. I'm not alright."  
  
"What?" Scott's eyes got large and scared.  
  
"Listen for my heartbeat, Scott."  
  
"But.. you." Scott stared at Stiles' silent un-breathing chest in betrayal.   
  
"I died a month ago. Gerard and his cronies killed Erica, Boyd and myself the night of the game." Isaac stiffened under Derek's hand and he gave a comforting squeeze.  
  
"You're not dead, Stiles. You can't be."  
  
"Yes, Scott. I can be dead, and I am. Do you want me to do the whole Patch Adams speech? I've expired, passed on, became extinct, flatlined. I've gone to the big whatever in the sky, kicked my oxygen habit, shuffled off the mortal coil, I'm living-impaired, snuffed it, ashes to ashes and dust to dust, bit the big one, floating belly up, took a long walk on a short pier, croaked, deceased, I am an ex-Stiles, the ghost formerly known as Stiles…" He spit out every euphemism in an unforgiving rapid fire way, making Scott and Isaac flinch with each one.  
  
 **"STOP IT!"** Scott cried, childishly covering his ears, completely overwhelmed. "Just… stop."  
  
"Are you starting to get it now, Scotty. There is no time for denial here. This is that moment in hollywood where you've heard the gunshot but can still fool yourself into thinking it'll be okay right up until I look down and touch the blood on my chest. I'm gone. My body just hasn't hit the ground yet."  
  
"But you're right here." Scott grabbed onto his shoulders and shook him, his eyes yellowing with extreme emotion. "How can you be dead when you're **RIGHT HERE?!** "  
  
"You need to get a grip, Scott. I can't stay and I can't go home. My dad is overprotective. The first thing he'll do is bring me to the hospital to get checked over. What do you think they'll do when their stethoscopes tell them that I'm not breathing, their heart monitors say my heart isn't beating and a CAT scan tells them that there is absolutely no brain activity? I'm dead, Scott and my presence here is not an indication that things are getting better. I'm a herald of things getting much worse, very quickly. Werewolves aren't the only supernatural things out there, Scott, and they definitely aren't the scariest things in the woods tonight. I'm am."  
  
"But you're human, you've always been human."  
  
"Not anymore. I lived human and I died human and now I'm something else."  
  
"What are you?"  
  
"I'm not sure there's a name for it. All I know is what I have to do and that I don't have much time to do it in."  
  
"Stiles, what do you have to do?"  
  
"They have to die, Scotty. They have to pay for what they did to us, and somehow, someway, the universe gave me the chance to make sure that happens. I love you man, you'll always be my brother from another mother. Just- don't get in my way. I have to finish what I started." With a quick look at Isaac, Stiles easily broke Scott's hold on him and dove out the window, the second story window, and with a rustle of feathers there wasn't even a thump as he hit the ground, he was simply gone.  
  
 **"STILES!"** Scott rushed to the window, but there was nothing left to see in the dark woods, even to his glowing golden eyes. The charred windowsill crumbled under the strength of his clawed hands as a dangerous growl rumbled in his chest. " **PETER!** What did you do to him?" He was across the room in a heartbeat, shoving the older man up against the rotting wall, hands fisted in his shirt. "He sounds just like _YOU!_ Stiles isn't a killer."  
  
"I think you'll find that he is. He is so much worse than I could ever have dreamed of being." Peter's voice was cool as he grasped Scott's wrists with clawed hands and slowly twisted until the enraged teen was forced to let go of his sweater. "I took my revenge, yes, but this… This is beyond all of us. He has become some kind of spirit of vengeance. We would be wise to take heed of his warning and stay out of his way."  
  
"We can't just let him **KILL PEOPLE!** "   
  
"Hunters, Scott, not people. The same hunters that tortured and killed him and two Betas of this pack, in case you had forgotten."  
  
"But, Allison…"  
  
Peter rolled his eyes, "Here we go, your best friend is dead and it takes you less than a minute to go right back to ignoring him in favor of your lady love. Wake up, Scott! Your girlfriend is out for blood and doesn't care who she hurts."  
  
"But I love her."  
  
"She's the Juliet to your Romeo." Isaac cut in.   
  
Scott beamed at him, "Exactly!"   
  
"That's not a good thing." Derek crossed his arms and stared Scott down. "Let me guess, you're thinking about how beautiful and romantic their love was for each other?"  
  
Scott nodded, smile on the dopey side "Yeah."  
  
Isaac just snorted, "Did you actually read that play when it was assigned last year or did you just skim off of Stiles' notes, because you obviously didn't learn anything from it. They knew each other for all of 3 days, Juliet was only 13 and their relationship caused the deaths of 6 people. The whole play is making fun of how blind and idiotic teenagers in love are and how they don't care when others suffer for it."  
  
"It's not like that."  
  
"Not like- _**WAKE UP, SCOTT!**_ This is exactly like that. Everyone remembers the end of the play where boo-hoo, the lovers die romantically in each others arms. Do you even remember who else died because of their selfishness before that? Do you remember the middle of the play when Romeo refuses to stand up to Juliet's family for fear of upsetting her, and his best friend dies because of it? Does that sound at all familiar, Scott? That the guy who had nothing to do with the feud, who was a neutral party, and was just there for his friend- he was the first to die." Isaac was panting through his fangs, gold eyes burning into Scott's stupefied brown.   
  
"Do you have any idea how jealous I always was of you and Stiles? How amazing your impenetrable friendship always looked from the outside? Derek offered me pack and the first thing I thought of was how you two were practically siamese twins. Even before he shipped out and left me alone with my father, Cam and I were never that close. I would literally kill to have someone care that much about me, and you're just throwing it away for a girl that would probably rather kill you than look at you. Do you even care that he's dead Scott?"  
  
"Of course I do!"   
  
"Then act like it." Isaac snarled, a growl building deep in his chest and sideburns slowly sprouting.  
  
"If you two are quite done establishing dominance?" Peter smoothly cut between them, startling them both back into human form. He waved his laptop in front of their noses. "Your woefully inadequate public educations aside, none of us knows what to expect from our dearly departed Mercutio. He was full of surprises when he was alive and I can only imagine he's grown stranger since his death." 

* * *

Gerard found the information on Mr. Stilinski's new form right where he knew it would be in the bestiary. His ilk hadn't been seen in hundreds of years, but Argents had long memories and excellent bookkeeping skills. He loved it when he was right. This whole situation was shaping up nicely in his favor, everything falling into place. He wouldn't even have to take the bite this way. He quickly swallowed a handful of pills and fiddled with his silver pillbox as he re-read the passage again and again. _'The cursed Corvx is immune to blade, bolt and poison, he needs not breath nor sustenance and his heart is still and silent. His power lays within not himself, but his avian companion.'_  
  
"Is this how we do things now?" Chris loomed over his father, hands fisted as they thumped into the desk. "Killing children. Going against everything you ever taught me to hold sacred."  
  
"You of all people should know that no man is perfectly rational when caught up in the struggle with grief." Gerard stood up to put himself at an even level with his quietly seething son. He and Christopher had never seen eye to eye or approached things in the same manner and that made the younger man unpredictable. Unlike his beloved Kate, who had turned out so like her father in so many ways. She had been perfect.  
  
"You do not want to play these games with me. Not now. Or my 'struggle with grief' will force me into actions you won't like."  
  
"What upsets you more, Christopher? That I'm breaking the code in a time of war, that your precious wife and baby sister both found reasons strong enough to merit breaking the code you hold more dear than _your own family_ , or the fact that you didn't even notice any of it?"  
  
"You call this a war, but all I see is a personal vendetta."  
  
"Funny you should say that, because that is exactly what our dearly departed Mr. Stilinski is bringing to the table."   
  
"Do you know what he is?" Allison joined them, stripping off her arm guard and fingerless gloves, ignoring the obvious tension between the two men.  
  
"I had an idea, yes." Gerard gestured to the computer, "… and I've just confirmed it. It is a spirit of vengeance, the Corvx or, in English, the Crow. A dead spirit killed in a violent way, a revenant of it's former self and seeks to wreak havoc on the living. It will tirelessly hunt down and mercilessly kill anyone it sees as having wronged it as well as anyone unfortunate enough to get its the way. These kinds of manifestations are short lived but they are near-unstoppable and unrelenting in their brutality. Like any mad beast, it will not stop until it has killed all of it's targets. I wouldn't be surprised if it attacked again tonight."  
  
"And you're the one who killed him. Killed all three of them." She stated, eyeing Gerard coldly. "You turned him into that thing we saw tonight. He's killed eight people tonight and that's on you."  
  
"Oh, sweetheart, you misunderstand the situation." Gerard reached out to grasp her arm, but Allison stepped back, twisting out of his reach. "The Betas were already leaving Derek. Wolves are bound by a deep bond to the Alpha that turns them, and it takes a great rift to sever that bond. More than half of his pack abandoned him, Allison. They were innocent, yes, but losing their biologically ingrained trust is a sign of how disturbed he is. I let them go when I was convinced that they would never consider returning to him. My problem is with Derek, not his pack, and they proved better then him by wanting nothing to do with him and leaving him to his fate. They will have to live the rest of their lives with the knowledge that they allowed him to taint their bodies and minds with his disease, but as long as they can control themselves, they are not my enemies."  
  
Gerard could see the fire in Allison's eyes rekindle at the thought of what Derek had done to Erica and Boyd, dragging them into this war. Cold satisfaction filled him, he hadn't lost her completely, not yet. Not like Chris. He could still salvage this, not that it would probably matter in the long run, but she was a useful tool to have.  
  
"As for Mr. Stilinski, he was a young man very determined to see me as the root of all the evil in this town. I did pick him up from the game, and yes, it was against his will, but I just wanted to speak to him, to help him understand the dangers of being an untrained human quite literally throwing himself to the wolves. I can't say that we had a pleasant interaction, but I felt I made my position quite clear. It may have been petty of me, but I released him in the woods and allowed him to find his own way home. If he was going to continue to make such bad life choices he was going to have to live with them and I thought a long walk home through the dark woods would make that clear to him and scare some sense into him."  
  
"So, you just… let them go?" It was obvious that Allison wanted desperately to believe in his lies, to take comfort that what she was doing was right. She wanted the security of believing that her family was made up of good people who loved her and wouldn't lie to her. He could have sneered at her pathetic show of willful ignorance, he couldn't imagine needing the comfort of sweet lies. Fairy tails and happy endings didn't exist in their world. That weakness was the direct result of Christopher raising her as a 'normal' little girl. She had strength and steel to her, but she could have been so much stronger if his idealistic son hadn't spoiled her with frivolous emotionality.   
  
"Of course, sweetheart. I may be a colder man than you'd like for a Grandfather, but I'm not a murder." Allison stared at him for a long moment, looking for hints of a lie or proof of honesty as she worked through her emotions. She gave a curt nod, having been soothed, if only for a while. "Excellent."  
  
"This conversation is not over." Chris threatened Gerard as he followed his daughter out of the office.  
  
"I wouldn't dream of it." Gerard replied with a congenial smile. "Oh, and Christopher, be a good boy and close the door on your way out."  
  
Chris grit his teeth, but obeyed, just as he always had. His son may not have turned out like his beautiful Kate, but at least the boy was weak and malleable enough that Gerard never had to worry about his rebellion manifesting in anything larger than the most trivial things. His son would fall in line if he knew what was good for him and if he didn't, then Gerard would make sure he joined his wife in the family plot far earlier than he expected.  
  
"You don't really believe him." Chris caught up to Allison on the stairs. He couldn't keep silent any longer as Gerard twisted her mind. He had been too wrapped up in his grief over his losses to notice that Allison was hurting just as much. With the added stress of finding out that their family business was hunting supernatural creatures and the fact that she would be expected to someday lead them, she was adrift in a world newly filled with unnatural threats without any of the people she used to rely on. He had abandoned her to struggle through her own grief and left her for Gerard to prey on and he needed to reconnect with his daughter before he lost her the same way he lost his sister and wife.  
  
"I don't know what to believe." Allison corrected. Chris watched fingernails that used to be religiously painted and repainted to keep up with the fad of the week tap against the polished railing, clipped short and bare of color. Her lips were a little chapped due to long hours out on the ATVs, her hair was pulled back harshly and not even the smallest trace of make-up graced her face. She looked tired, worn down and run ragged. She clearly hadn't been taking any better care of herself than he had. "What I do know is that Stiles wasn't a killer and so whatever he is now, he needs to be stopped."  
  
"Allison, I know he was a friend of yours. You don't have to be the one to stop him." He searched her eyes for some sign of the struggle she must be feeling.  
  
"It's exactly because he was my friend that I need to do this." Her voice was clinical in it's decisiveness, nothing would stop her now that she had her next target and considered herself on a mission. "He was always over his head in the thick of things trying to stop Peter, Matt and Jackson. I need to do this for him. He wouldn't want to be this thing. He would want to know I was there to stop him."  
  
"It's not easy to face down former friends, Allison. If you need to talk, if you need me for anything, I'll be here."  
  
"There's nothing to talk about. I know what needs to be done. ' _Nous chassons ceux qui nous chassent_.'"  
  
Chris watched his baby girl walk away from him, the cold mask of resolve never having left her face. They had taught her to protect herself, they had taught her to hunt and kill, but they had never taught her how to turn it off, how to relax with family and that it was alright to feel safe at home. Neither he nor Victoria would ever be considered warm cuddly parents, but he still loved his daughter and he couldn't believe how much it hurt to know that he was losing her. After tonight she was more aware of Gerard's manipulations and would be careful not to become another Kate, but he was still losing her inside the soldier she was becoming.   
  
Heart heavy, he retreated to his wife's study and pulled down an elegantly bound book with gold foil edging and the Argent family crest embossed on the cover. He opened the tome and reverently fingered the items contained in the hollow center. He lingered on his wife's wedding ring, closing his eyes and taking a moment to center himself before determination tightened his jaw and his fingers skated over two symbolic silver bullets and several concentrated vials of wolfsbane, retrieving the innocuous looking flash drive.  
  
He needed to find out what he was really dealing with, because there was no way the creature Gerard had described would have taken the time to defend the wolves, warn them away from protecting Gerard or let any of them them leave those woods alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sergei Prokofiev was a Russian composer who wrote a children's symphony called 'Peter and the Wolf' in 1936.


	4. Chapter 4

Allison sat on her bed fiddling with the splintered pieces of broken bow her father had shot right out of her hands a month earlier. She had kept it as a reminder that he owed her a replacement, even after Gerard had outfitted her with the most lethal bow money could buy. She remembered the haze of utter fury that had overtaken her that night, but thinking clearer now, she realized that her father had been trying to stop her from taking everything too far in her rage. He was trying to protect her from herself and she had been completely out of control, egged on at every turn by Gerard. She had almost killed Erica and Boyd, had desperately wanted to make them hurt, and she had practically gift wrapped them for Gerard. Allison may not have been a part of their torture and murder, but she had no illusions that if her father had not stopped her, she could easily have taken it to that point and just the thought of what she was capable of terrified her. She still remembered the insane look in Kate's eyes those last few hours before her death, and she never wanted to become that.  
  
She sniffed and hastily wiped away her tears, but jumped at the sound of a knock on her door. Gerard didn't even wait for a response after his knock, simply opening the door and making himself comfortable on the corner of her bed. Having seen deeper into his manipulations, always with his turn of phrase and false empathy, her skin crawled to have him so close.  "Sweetheart, I know you're confused and probably don't want to speak to me right now, but you need to know. Whatever your friend was to you is gone now. All that is left is an undead creature of incredible ability that wants us dead. Now more than ever we need to stick together as a family."  
  
"You. He wants you dead." Allison was very much starting to see her grandfather for who he really was, and it wasn't a pretty picture. She longed for the days when she was a little girl and had that absolute certainty of a child that her family was wonderful and they all loved her more than anything and would never let anything happen to her. Faith was in short supply these days, especially in family.  
  
"Don't forget, Allison, that you are the one who caught them for me. You are just as much of a target as I am. He will be coming for us both and we will need to stand together to face him and have any hope of winning. Sleep lightly tonight, I have a feeling that we'll be having a visitor." Gerard looked at her with the same sympathy he had when he gave her the suicide letter from her mother, but while she had welcomed it then she found it lacking and off-putting now. She couldn't believe anything he said, but in this case he didn't need to lie. She WAS a part of this and there was a good chance that Stiles held her just as responsible as her grandfather. Gerard left her with that chilling thought, pale and shaky with the horrifying anticipation of having to face down the vengeful ghost of a friend. Where was her self-righteous fury and determination to defend herself and her family when she most needed it?

* * *

 _"The Corvx is always created from the soul of a human innocent killed by human evil while watching those they care about die. Never has there been a recorded case where the Corvx was a supernatural creature prior to death, was killed by anything supernatural or died alone."_  
  
The line from the bestiary echoed in Chris's head as he stood at the foot of the stairs in the basement where he was certain three teenagers had been tortured and killed. The smell of bleach still hung in the air, but he was experienced enough to have vivid sense memory of the blood that must have soaked the floors of his family's house. He felt emotionally wrung out. Had he really been so absent in his own home that this could have happened and the evidence erased all without him noticing? He hadn't even recovered from the revelation that his sister was a mass murderer, or her death before his wife was bitten and subsequently sacrificed to their cursed mission. Now, he had to deal with the fact that his father was mad with revenge and killing teenagers, his wife had attempted what his father succeeded in and he was loosing his daughter to the mission and to Gerard.  
  
He stared down at the cracked, bloody lacrosse pads he had found wedged under his workbench, an unintentional trophy of a complete waste of young life. Argent used to be a name both feared and respected, now they were just feared. They were supposed to be better, to be honorable. He had been taught to uphold the Code for a reason. Without it a hunter was nothing but a vigilante on a vendetta. The Code was what made them better than the beasts they hunted. The mission was always supposed to be more about protecting innocents than about killing. If they were to play judge, jury and executioner than they had to be impeccable in their judgement and careful to be truly just in their hunts. In the old days there had to be irrefutable proof that a wolf had killed before they could be hunted. If hunters weren't actively protecting the unsuspecting populace then they were just killers and murderers. How had his family fallen to this and how could he not have noticed earlier, in time to do something?  
  
With a silent snarl Chris threw the pads across the basement. He knew what he had to do, but that didn't mean he had to like it. A TRUE Argent did what needed to be done, not what they wanted done. Justice was impartial and didn't care about personal feelings even when it meant acting against his own family. He refused to let them fall any farther.

* * *

The wolves were all arranged around Peter's laptop and searching for information on what Stiles could have been transformed into. They had found some small references but nothing that told them anything they didn't already know. Revived spirit, accompanied by a bird, impossible to hurt, etc.  
  
They stiffened as one when they heard the distinctive sound of an SUV approaching the Hale House. They were on edge as they listened intently to the sounds of Chris Argent's slightly elevated heart rate as he sighed deeply and got out of his car. He didn't even bother approaching the house, knowing that he wouldn't be welcome, calling out instead "I'm alone and I just came to talk." There was a long silence as he waited for an answer that wasn't going to come.  
  
Blue, red and a double set of gold glowing eyes exchanged glances, but none of them relaxed, ready to fight or flee at the slightest provocation. They had already been hunted down by Argents once tonight and no one was keen on repeating the experience so soon. They needed to concentrate on Stiles and mourn the loss of three pack members. The last thing they wanted to deal with was someone from the very family that had killed them. With exhaustion dragging at their control, emotions were running high and tempers were short. It may not be a full moon, but when such extreme emotion was involved, the inner wolf didn't care much, it just wanted to make someone bleed.  
  
"I know what he is." Chris continued, showing no sign that he felt the bitter symmetry of yelling about the latest Argent victim to the old burnt out husk left by his family's cruelty. Trying to extend a peaceful branch of diplomacy to people he'd hunted down and shot at mere hours before. "Our bestiary called him The Corvx, The Crow. The resurrected human spirit of an innocent, killed by human evil while watching those he cared about die."  
  
"We know." Derek stepped out to the porch to confront the hunter, leaping over the rotting stairs. He stopped a dozen yards away, just close enough that they wouldn't need to shout, but far enough that the headlights didn't illuminate him. His burning red eyes were the only thing Chris could see of him. "Why are you here?"  
  
"Was it true? About Victoria trying to kill Scott at the rave?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Christ." Chris rubbed a hand over his face. "I know you won't believe it considering our history, but I truly do believe in the Code and I had no reason to think that they were breaking it, either Kate or Victoria."  
  
"Just as you've been turning a blind eye to your father abandoning it completely?" Derek asked cuttingly.  
  
"You were a new Alpha in an unstable territory and a bad history with our family. You turned three high risk teenaged Betas in less than a month, killings were starting up again and I believed that you had deliberately bitten Victoria. So, no, that I knew, I was just beyond caring enough to stop him." Chris admitted. "I probably still wouldn't have stopped him if it were just your Betas, but Stiles was human, and the Sheriff's son and I am LOSING Allison the same way I apparently lost Kate and Victoria, only this time I am forced to watch as it happens."  
  
"Give me one reason I should care about any of that?" Derek demanded. "Give me one reason not to run you off my property like the dirty sub-human beast you've always thought we were."  
  
"I'm not here for sympathy and I'm not here to make amends. I know we've gone far beyond that. I'm not even here to ask for your help in stopping Stiles. Retribution is coming for my family and I've got enough faith in doing the right thing left in me to let that happen. I'm here because our bestiary also says how to hurt him, how to stop him, and if I know, then Gerard knows too."  
  
Isaac and Scott both emerged from the house upon hearing that bit of unfortunate news.  
  
"He can be hurt?" Isaac questioned. "Derek said shooting him and cutting him did nothing."  
  
"He can't, but the bird with him, the crow? That can be hurt like any other animal. It's only special ability is bringing the souls back from the dead, it is a spirit guide and without it Stiles will be lost between worlds. I don't know exactly what effect it will have on him, but Gerard has done enough damage already. One way or another he needs to be stopped."  
  
"What do you expect us to do about it?" Derek questioned.  
  
"I don't know. I'm not sure there is anything you COULD do, but I'm tired of hunting you for things you haven't done and I'm tired of people dying. As far as I can tell you've always tried your best to do what you think is the right thing and I'm trying my damnedest to do the same. I will never like you, Derek, but I figured you should know the full story. Do with it what you will."  
  
He turned to the shorter of the golden gazes, squinting into the dark, "Scott, I'm not happy that you were dating my daughter behind my back, but I'm also not going to react the same way my wife did. I'm not completely altruistic with telling you all of this. I don't care what Derek does, but I need your help. I think Stiles might be after Allison, too. She's the one who captured Erica and Boyd and Gerard's been filling her head with lies the same way he did with Kate. She won't back down. He never hurt anyone while he was alive so she thinks she'll be honoring his memory by stopping him from killing. Even if she isn't one of his targets, she's going to stand in his way and however friendly they used to be, it's not going to stop him from going straight through her."  
  
"Allison's going to fight him?" Scott was horrified at the thought of his best friend and the girl he loved fighting to the death, because he knew how deadly and volatile they both were. He stepped up next to Chris. "She's not exactly talking to me right now, and I've never been able to stop either of them once they've decided on something but I'll come."  
  
Chris looked at the others for response, but was shocked when Peter Hale stepped into the light cast by his headlights. "We'll find our own way, thanks."  
  
"You're supposed to be dead."  
  
"Resurrection is the new black. It's all the rage these days, and I'm nothing if not fashionable. "  
  
"It seems we both need to clean house." Chris told Derek.  
  
"You take care of yours and let me worry about mine." Derek growled, "Interfering seems to be where your family always gets it wrong."  
  
"Fair enough." Chris nodded once to Derek and climbed into the SUV, Scott joining him after a quick glance at the others. He knew he was doing the right thing, Allison and Stiles needed him, but he still felt like he was betraying them. He may have originally joined the pack because Gerard had told him to get close to Derek, but it had felt right over this last month to work side by side to find Erica, Boyd and Stiles. Without his major social anchors in Stiles or Allison, he had felt completely alone and sharing a common goal with the pack had eased the pain a little.  
  
Scott couldn't help but remember Isaac telling him how Derek had changed when Erica and Boyd had first left, alternately treating Isaac like precious glass and pushing him away. He had thawed a bit since then, relaxing his guard as the weeks had passed and both Isaac and Scott had stuck around. Scott had seen a softer side of Derek in the last month than he had ever imagined could have existed. The new version of the Alpha was visibly worried about his pack, both present and absent, and pushed them to the limits and past but always with the understanding that he was trying to help them survive and hopefully someday thrive. He exhausted himself night after night hunting down leads to all three missing teens.  
  
That Derek had evaporated like mist, the Alpha watching Scott voluntarily leave with the closest thing the Hales had to a mortal enemy didn't even try to stop him or call him back. It felt like something fragile and hard won that Scott hadn't even noticed building between them was shattering. The former and now once again Omega hunched into himself a little and couldn't meet the Alpha's cold red eyes as Chris put the truck in gear and they left the devastated little pack alone in the dark.  
  
The three remaining wolves were silent for a moment as they listened to the car fading into the distance.  
  
"…and now you've lost another one. Excellent Alpha skills there, Derek. You never even bothered to tell them not to get in cars with strange men. Hunters don't need to shoot them anymore, just offer them candy." Peter was unsurprisingly the first to shatter the quiet.  
  
"He was never truly mine, Peter. You know the bond isn't as strong when you aren't tied by blood or bite."  
  
"Not to mention the fact that you got his best friend killed. That can be a strong downside to any Alpha-Beta relationship."  
  
"There are more important things to talk about right now." Isaac interrupted. "Stiles may have died once already but it sounds like he's in danger. So, the question is what DO we do? What CAN we do? You basically made him sound like Superman with his invulnerability."  
  
"Leave them all to die." Peter responded. "Live and let die has always been my motto. Well, live and get revenge by killing them all, but it's the same thing really."  
  
"No." Derek rebutted, "Stiles died for being loyal to this pack and Erica and Boyd were my Betas. We need to protect him, and if we can't, then we need to finish what he started."  
  
Peter grinned in delight, "There you go, nephew. I'll have you developing a taste for revenge yet."  
  
"This isn't about revenge, Peter. The lore was adamant about that much at least. The Crow doesn't seek vengeance it seeks justice."  
  
"Yeah, and the Kanima just wanted a friend and only kills murderers." Isaac muttered. Derek pretended not to hear him as he bolted into the woods, shifting into Beta form and gaining speed as he fell to run on all fours. Isaac looked to Peter for commiseration, until he realized who he had been left alone with and took off after his Alpha.

* * *

The Argent house was quiet as a large black bird flew over silently, a second mind looking through it's eyes as it perched outside Allison's window. She was dressed to kill and fastidiously sharpening an already gleaming blade with obsessive precision. She stiffened and looked up, feeling eyes on her.  She barely caught the rustle of leaves in her peripheral vision as the branch was vacated. She listened intently, but could only hear the typical sounds of the house, Gerard's men were gathered in the living room, a faint murmur of planning, the slow tick-tocking of the large grandfather clock at the base of the stairs was like a heartbeat, slow and steady, but the house no longer felt asleep. The air was electrified with a sense of anticipation. Slowly, silently, she put down her whetstone and readjusted her grip on her chinese ring knife, unfolding from her bed with concise movements.  
  
The Crow moved on from Allison's window, circling around to peer through the large front windows overlooking the living room. A group of hunters were pouring over maps and blueprints of the house, town and surrounding woods. Gerard presided over them like a king of old, doling out equal measures of praise and strongly worded rabble rousing statements that promised violence to come.  
  
Every one of them was a pawn, to be used and thrown away, and so it was that every one of them was surprised, and not as alarmed as they should have been when a large black bird flew in from the dining room and landed in the center off the maps they had laid out. Gerard just smiled, a dark satisfaction burning in his eyes.  
  
"How the hell did that get in here?" One hunter tried to shoo the bird away but had to dodge back as it pecked viciously at him. "What the hell? Is anyone else seeing this? Here birdy-birdy-birdy." He leapt for the bird, following it as it fluttered back the way it had come.  
  
He was shocked to find himself flying backwards into the china cabinet when Stiles appeared out of the darkened kitchen, lifted himself up on the doorway lintel and dropkicked him in the chest with both of his dirty bare feet. The stunned man crumpled slowly to the ground in a shower of broken glass and shattered wood.  
  
"Here hunter-hunter-hunter."  
  
The response was immediate and would have been complete overkill if Stiles had still been human. One of the hunter's closest to him charged him with a knife, running wide to the side to leave a clear line of sight for the others who all opened fire.  
  
Stiles ignored the bullets thudding into him and grabbed the man by his wrist, wrenching his arm up and around to swing him into a headlock as he used him as a meat shield. The hunter's body jerked as it was filled with hot wolfsbane laced lead.  
  
Stiles caught the large bowie knife as the dead man dropped it and threw it at the decorative chandelier over the still grouped hunters, plunging the room into darkness in a shower of glass and sparks as it crashed to the floor.  
  
The hunters all dodged and scattered, Gerard ducking out the doorway farthest from Stiles, leaving his men to die, pawns sacrificed for the good of the king. Muzzle fire and the dim light filtering in from the streetlights added chaotic shadows to the scene as the hunters tried desperately to stop the enraged spirit of vengeance from collecting their damned souls. The ash painting his face looked even more demonic in the harsh light. "You're all going to die."  
  
Stiles burst into motion, smacking a gun out of a hunter's hand, then whirling to chop another directly across the neck with his other hand. A bullet shattered a vase on the mantle behind him as he spun the dazed hunter around and guided his hand. The man reflexively pulled the trigger, shooting three slugs center mass into his disarmed ally and practically pulping his chest. Stiles was briefly surprised by how much damage the bullets caused, but he had watched enough movies to realize that the hunter had equipped hollow point rounds. Even without wolfsbane not many wolves would survive one of those long enough to heal. When the man stopped firing, Stiles hoisted him effortlessly over his head and threw him out the large picture window and out onto the Argent's front lawn with the splintering of bones, framing and glass.  
  
He surveyed the room, catching sight of his next target, a hunter standing alone with his gun trained on him, but the gun clicked empty as the man tried to take the shot. He flung his gun to the side and retreated to the kitchen with Stiles stalking right after him, bare feet crunching over the broken glass. The man grabbed for the large knives held in a butcher block on the counter as he ducked around the kitchen table, trying to keep some measure of space between them. He threw a chef's knife and a carving fork one after another at Stiles and was reaching for another weapon when the spirit caught them in mid air and threw them back. The man thrust up his arms to protect himself, but the chef's knife hit him with such force that the point went straight through his arm and pinned it to his chest while the carving fork drilled into his throat and he collapsed with a gurgle, choking up blood.  
  
The last two hunters had taken up shelter in the living room behind the couch and in the dining room flipping the table on it's side for cover. Stile's eye caught on Gerard's sword, abandoned on the coffee table, used to weigh down one side of a map. He took a running start, vaulted off the sofa table over the back of the couch and drove his feet and full weight down onto the hunter behind it, stomping his head into the hardwood floor with a wet crunch.  
  
Ducking into a roll he kept moving, bullets raining into the floor behind him as he snatched up Gerard's sword and threw it to impale the last hunter straight through the dining room table.  
  
Finally, he stood alone in the destroyed living room. The large decorative mirror on the wall behind him was riddled with bullets and had shattered in the pattern of a bird's wings. The hunters had been taken care of one way or the other, some dead and others well on their way, so it was time for the Crow to find his true target, no more interruptions. His guide croaked at him from a table in the hall and pecked hard at the door to the basement.  
  
He turned to follow the bird but was distracted when Allison leapt over the second floor railing to land in his way. He looked at her determined face and felt a swell of bleakness smother the dark part of him that felt satisfaction over the fight. "You don't want to do this, Allison. Don't get in my way. You can't stop me. Don't make me go through you."  
  
She took up a defensive stance, squaring off to block the basement door and brought up her ring knife into a guard position. "You are not Stiles, not anymore, he wouldn't be killing people for fun and if he were still alive he would be right here next to me trying to stop you."  
  
The Crow smiled at her bitterly, "Is that so? Would he also have shot Erica and Boyd full of arrows and served them up to Gerard knowing that they would be killed? Would he be out for Derek's blood even knowing that he wasn't to blame? That was all you, Allison. You are the reason your mother is dead. You and Scott, so desperate to be together that you made me a walking talking love note. So utterly convinced that your homicidal parents were wrong that you went behind their backs at every opportunity. Well, you weren't careful enough."  
  
"It wasn't my fault." Her stance didn't falter, but her eyes were shiny and her voice cracked.  
  
"Your mother went to that rave with one purpose in mind, killing Scott. She had read his school file, where he's still listed as a severe asthmatic. She chose a brand of wolfsbane specifically to simulate a bad asthma attack and she locked him in a small room and watched him choke as it slowly filled with wolfsbane smoke. Derek SAVED HIS LIFE. He knew Scott was dying and he save him from your mother. Then SHE chose to kill herself. You've seen Scott, you know that even once someone has been bitten unwillingly they can still control it and live a normal life." The way he stared at her, stared _into_ her… unblinking, unmoving, was hypnotic. She could feel herself drowning in every word that washed over her as she sank deeper in the despair of his dark eyes.  
  
"Derek is the Alpha wolf in charge of this territory Allison, if she had relaxed her bigotry enough to ask for help he would have given it, even if only to keep her from being a rogue Omega in his town. He can't afford to have hunters like your family constantly attacking him, he just wants to live his life. Tell me Allison, which part of that makes her a victim, which part of that deserves vengeance? Because I'll tell you right now it's not you and it's not your family." He took a step closer and it didn't even occur to her why that might be dangerous.  
  
"Gerard has been preying on your grief and anger. He is a monster that wants to twist your mind the same way he did Kate. He needs to be stopped, Allison. That's why I'm here, why I came back."  
  
"You're not a killer. You're not!" Allison sobbed. "You never hurt anyone."  
  
"And he killed me anyways, Allison. He doesn't CARE who he hurts." He stepped forward again, and she let him, her knife drooping out of her guarded stance. "But you do. You still care don't you. You try so hard to be the tough killer you think you want to be but you still care about right and wrong more than you care about the poison he's been dripping in your ears."  
  
"I didn't know. I didn't know what he was going to do to them."  
  
"You want to know so badly which side is right? You want absolute proof that I am telling the truth?" Allison was so conflicted that she allowed him to back her up against the wall, ignoring the press of the knife between them. "They say that there are three sides to every event, their story, your story and the truth." He placed his hands over her temples. "This is the truth, Allison. This is all of the pain and suffering your family has caused."  
  
He opened his mind and forced it all into her, every memory he had gleaned from Isaac, Derek, Scott and Peter's minds when he had touched them. Every memory of what happened to Erica and Boyd and himself.  
  
She seized and her eyes rolled back in pain as she grabbed his wrists hard enough to snap bone, not pulling, but holding on to the one solid thing in her world as her mind was filled with the agony of burning, the terror of being hunted, the despair of having family broken and beaten and burned beyond all recognition. He fed the pain of a pack lost, the burn of wolfsbane, the uncertainty of a sister missing, the grief of finally finding her dead and her body desecrated and the stagnant mindless horror of 6 years in a comatose state directly into her mind.  
  
She felt the intimidation and fear Scott had experienced during what should have been a simple dinner, all the while knowing that Derek was dying by inches and he might be next. She experienced the guilt and self hatred Derek felt every day to know he had been used to kill his own family, she watched Boyd and Erica and Stiles' own last few hours of life, years of torture and pain and destruction caused by Kate, Victoria, Gerard, Chris and herself. She felt all of it and knew, finally and without uncertainty which side of their supernatural war had been in the wrong all along.  
  
When Stiles finally released her, she slumped to the floor with a vacant stare, a trickle of blood flowing out of her nose. He gently wiped it away and pressed a kiss to her forehead. "I'm so sorry, but it was the only way you could know for sure. Use it, rise above it, be better than they ever were."  
  
He left her there as he went down into the basement to confront Gerard for the last time, his spirit guide by his side. The old man stood weaponless and at parade rest in the center of the basement, watching with cold eyes as Stiles came down the stairs. The first thing he noticed was the Kanima wound around the old man's feet like a loyal dog, well trained and ready to defend it's Master. The lizard-were hissed savagely at him as he came to a halt at the base of the stairs, viscous fluid dripping from both fangs and claws.  
  
"Jackson, I had wondered where you had gotten off to." He met Gerard's eyes, both dead and calculating. "He can't stop me. Paralysis doesn't do anything when you don't have any circulation."  
  
"Maybe not, Mr. Stilinski, but he's not here to deal with you." The Kanima lunged at him, but he dodged easily to the side as the lizard flew past. He smirked at Gerard, but was taken aback by the triumphant look on the old man's face. "What-"  
  
Even as he turned to look a deep, heavy lethargy took over his body and he knew what had happened. Jackson stood behind him poised over a motionless lump of feathers. Stiles watched, helpless, as the Kanima retrieved the squawking but motionless bird for his master. His reactions were slowed and his vision swam as the old man shoved past him, knocking him to the floor. He grunted in automatic reaction when he was brutally kicked in the chest, knocking him back into the wall. He reached out for Gerard as the hunter walked away but his hands shook with the strain of moving even that much and he could do nothing as Master and Kanima left him alone in the dark of his own personal hell.  
  
The whole room swayed as Stiles was lost in memories of everything that had happened in this basement. The memories were a psychic scream that drowned out his consciousness. He slowly forced his unresponsive muscles to curl his body on it's side in distress as pain assaulted him. He unsteadily pressed his shaking hands to his temples to try and stop the onslaught but nothing filtered out Erica's screams and Boyd's whimpers, the smell of electricity and burning flesh. He trembled in pain as he relived each strike and cut and surge of static burning through his veins.

 

 

> _\--Erica was screaming--_
> 
>  
> 
>  
>
>> _\--Boyd moaned--_
>> 
>>  
>> 
>>  
>>
>>> _\--The hunters were laughing--_
>>> 
>>>  
>>> 
>>>  
>>>
>>>> _\--His body was too heavy with injuries. He couldn't support himself anymore as they kicked him around. He was helpless to their manhandling as they propped him on the stairs to watch what they were doing to the Betas. His jaw was shattered but he still begged, garbled broken pleas for them to stop.--_

Stiles sank deep within himself and lost all sense of time. He was only brought back to the present when the darkness was interrupted with flashes of blue and red and the ringing in his ears gave way to the sound of sirens. Beacon Hill's finest were on their way and he couldn't be found here, he couldn't let his father see him like this. He had unfinished business and he couldn't let Gerard or Jackson stop him.  
  
Slowly, painstakingly, Stiles dragged himself to his feet and smashed out the pane of a vent window at the back of the house. The glass cut into his hands as he lifted himself out the narrow window and staggered away from the light and sound, into the cool, dark peaceful shadows of the woods behind the Argent house. He left a trail of glass shards as they worked their way out of his skin and fell to the ground in his wake. His mind was reeling with the animal instinct to escape, to get away.


	5. Chapter 5

When the SUV pulled into the Argent's street, all Scott and Chris could see was a fleet of ambulances and police vehicles. The front windows of the house were shattered and they could see straight into the disaster that was once the living room. Police tape was looped everywhere and the whole scene was crawling with police and EMTs. A sheet covered body lay out in the center of the lawn and medical personnel could be seen laying down another sheet inside the house. They pulled up as close as they could among the emergency vehicles and got out, but before they could approach the house Sheriff Stilinski stopped them.  
  
"I can't let you go any farther." Chris could see the exhaustion in every movement the man made, the lines of his face exaggerated by the flashing lights. The hunter realized abruptly that the Sheriff still didn't even know that his son was dead. He had no idea of what truly went on in the town he protected, he was just a man trying to do his best for his community and the only family he had left, now he wouldn't even have that. "I'm going to need to know where you've been tonight. I've got a double homicide at a bar earlier this evening, my vic's bloody fingerprints are all over his phone and the last contact dialed is your house. I've got shots fired in the preserve that we still have to follow up on and now this massacre. What the hell is going on in my town, Chris?"  
  
" **ALLISON!** " Scott shouted and shoved past the Sheriff to get to her side as she was wheeled down the front walk on a gurney. He grabbed ahold of her hand and walked with her to the ambulance. "Allison?"  
  
She was only semi conscious and her hand barely returned the pressure of his grasp, but she managed to look him in the eye for a brief second mumbling all the while. "Sorry. We were wrong, we were so wrong. It's all our fault. My fault. _Oh, god._ I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. Our fault. I'm sorry. "  
  
Chris looked anxiously at his daughter, glancing back and forth from where they were loading her into the ambulance to the Sheriff. The man sighed, his shoulders slumping with understanding only a father could have. "Go." He waved Chris off with one hand, rubbing at his face tiredly with the other. "Just go… but stay at the hospital. Don't go anywhere. I'll post a deputy. I'm going to need a statement sooner rather than later and I'll need to question Allison. I need to know what she saw."  
  
"Thank you." Chris grasped the man's shoulder, in his work with the police they had become something like friends and John had been there for him after Victoria, quietly supporting him, knowing the pain of losing your other half. It burned uncomfortably in his gut that his father had been the one to kill the Sheriff's son. Neither the energetic teen nor this man deserved it. Sometimes the costs of being a hunter just didn't seem worth it all.  
  
He hated the fact that he was already running through scenarios to come up with the best lies to placate the Sheriff. Gerard was his easiest bet. Reports of the doting grandfather that went off the deep end when his daughter and daughter in law died. He had become obsessed with the local teens and forced his way into the high school. An old man who had made some questionable contacts over his long years but couldn't handle the factional infighting between the groups. Many of the hunters most loyal to his grandfather had unsavory records that would only work in favor of the lie. The lacrosse pads were still in the basement and the Sheriff would be out for blood, but at least he would have some answers.  
  
Chris watched the worn slump of the Sheriff's posture as he walked back to his crime scene to speak to the medical examiner, until the ambulance doors were shut and cut off his view. He curled his fingers around Allison's free hand, Scott still attached to the other, and thanked all the gods that he still had his daughter. They would survive this night of hell and that was all that mattered for now. He could work on making amends later, for now he just needed to be close to the only family he had left. Gerard, whether or not he survived the night, was dead to him for bringing this down on their family.

* * *

His spirit guide may have been paralyzed, but Stiles' connection to it was still strong. He followed the pull through the woods, gradually regaining full use of his limbs, but the stiffness persisted, leeching his strength and reminding him of the fact that he was nothing more than a reanimated corpse. It felt like he was fighting rigor mortis with each step that he took, sapping his energy and the sweet darkness of death called him home, curling in wait at the very edges of his soul. He was almost done, soon he could rest. He staggered on, deeper and deeper into the preserve, so focused on reaching Gerard and his guide that he almost missed the sound of hissing and snarling as he approached it.  
  
The Kanima was alone, obviously left as a rear guard as Gerard got away once again, but that could work in Stiles' favor. The venom wouldn't work directly on him, so long as Jackson was kept far away from Stiles' crow his only weapons were physical. Claws and fangs and a prehensile tail he could handle. The Kanima lunged for him and this time it wasn't a feint. He grabbed its wrists as the dripping claws came at his face, but as they grappled its tail flipped up behind him, the bony point slashing across his neck. He didn't even falter and the beast became enraged, whipping him again and again across the back, battering him with its strength.  
  
Abruptly changing tactics, the tail bashed down on Stiles' wrists breaking his hold and the Kanima scrambled away into the shadows. He heard it circling, claws digging into bark as it jumped from tree to tree. It leapt at him and he kicked it back, smashing it against a trunk. He followed up with a punch but it ducked, slashing out at his stomach as he arched out of the way.  
  
He grabbed its tail as it swung towards him and twirled on his heel, using the centrifugal force to fling it through a tree. The lizard dug long gouges in the dirt as it caught itself with its claws, splintered bits of wood tumbling to the ground around it. It dashed back towards him, but jumped sideways at the last moment and launched itself off a tree for an aerial attack.  
  
He allowed it to bowl him over, but added force to the roll and grappled his way to the top, slamming the beast on its back in the leaves. Immediately the claws were slashing out at him and the tail wrapped around his throat, squeezing hard enough that a wolf would have lost consciousness and a human would have died.  
  
Stiles ignored the tail wound tight around his neck like a noose. He didn't need to breathe and a crushed trachea or broken neck wouldn't even slow him down as it healed. He pressed his hands to the thrashing lizard's temples, punching it across the face to daze it when the Kanima dug its fangs into his wrist. The were-gone-wrong let out a hair-raising screech, slitted eyes rolling back under its third eyelids as Stiles dug deep into its psyche, tearing at layer after layer of bestial instincts as he sought the spark of pure Jackson at its core. The other teen was buried deep, lost beneath the basic **_killhuntobey_** instincts of the Kanima. Stiles ripped all trace of the bond to Gerard out of Jackson's mind and dragged the wounded soul to the surface, pushing the hindbrain instinct down deep where it belonged.  
  
The Kanima's tail dropped away from his neck as scales melted into tanned skin and claws and fangs receded. Stiles left Jackson there, unconscious and naked but mentally free of the Kanima and the control of a Master for the first time in months. Stiles hadn't healed the underlying emotional problems that had created the Kanima, but he had ripped its consciousness apart to the point where it would never be strong enough to control Jackson again. He was on his own for any more than that, he was alive and he was healthy.  
  
As far as lasting emotional trauma went Stiles washed his hands of the whole thing. He had never liked Jackson and he owed him nothing. It wasn't any of Stiles' business what the living did with their lives, not any more. He may have been an unabashed busy body of the highest order when he was alive, but no more. After tonight Beacon Hills, hunters, the pack, Scott, his dad… they were all on their own.  
  
Gerard was his only priority now. This close to his goal Stiles could feel himself fading, losing interest in anything but his revenge. His focus was narrowing to a single point. Gerard. He was less and less Stiles and more and more the Crow. His human emotions falling away beneath the cold conviction of his purpose. Time was short, dawn was coming and he needed to finish things.  
  
He began to run, following the siren's call of his link with the crow. He was one with the bird, he was The Crow. His leather jacket flapped behind him as he blurred through the woods and his bare feet barely brushed over the ground as he flew towards his prey.

* * *

Derek was the first to pick up scent as they lurked in the shadows out of sight of the emergency personnel crawling all over the Argent household. He was circling around behind the house when glass crunched under his foot. He noticed the trail of glass shards leading to a broken basement window, glinting blue and red as the lights flashed. The trail ended a few yards into the tree line. He turned a shard over in his hands, staring out into the darkness and the faintest trace of Stiles' scent reached his nose. Ever since the teen had come back his scent had been stale, like his body was nothing more than a set of clothing he'd once worn. He didn't sweat, he didn't bleed, there was no life left in him to leave a mark of his passing. The Alpha growled, sub-vocally, but loud enough to gain Peter and Isaac's attention and followed the faint scent. As he ran he was quickly joined by his Betas and they ran together through the woods side by side, hunting as a pack.  
  
The path was easy to follow, even when the trail faded to imperceptibility beyond the range of his Alpha senses. It followed a straight line, never deviating. Derek heard his mother's voice in the back of his head, a fragment from a long forgotten conversation, _'The shortest distance between two points is measured in a straight line, Derek, as the crow flies.'_  
  
The scent of Stiles disappeared completely when it was overtaken with the dry musk of lizard and the stink of ridiculously expensive Clive Christian cologne. The trio slowed to a trot as they passed overturned dirt, several destroyed trees and walked into what was obviously the site of a battle. The area was drenched in the scent of the Kanima, but it was fading and the scent of cologne, of Jackson's human form led away.  
  
"He took down the Kanima." Peter was reluctantly impressed.  
  
"Should we go after Jackson?" Isaac asked, "This is the first time he's surfaced in human form for over a month. It could be our only chance to put him down."  
  
"He's being controlled by Gerard." Derek was torn, but knew what he needed to do. "Stiles is after Gerard. If he dies then either Jackson will be free of control or he'll need time to find another master. Stiles and Gerard are our priority. Jackson isn't important and the Kanima is nothing without a Master."  
  
He sniffed around a bit before picking up on Stiles' trail again. They were getting close, the damaged trees were just starting to well up with sap and the destruction couldn't be more than a few minutes old, half an hour at the most.

* * *

Gerard was waiting for him when he burst into the clearing. He tightened his grip on the pathetically struggling bird as Stiles stepped forward. "Ah-ah, Mr. Stilinski. It would be in your best interest to stay where you are."  
  
"What is your plan here, Gerard? A mexican standoff doesn't get either of us what we want, and I can wait you out. You are an old man and I will not tire or give up. You can't stop me. I _will_ kill you."  
  
"That's where you are wrong. I know you stole a copy of my bestiary. Did you manage to translate any of it? What did you think? Such a wealth of knowledge my family has collected over the years. Generation upon generation of hunters finding ways to kill creatures like you."  
  
Stiles went very still.  
  
"Yes, Mr. Stilinski. I know your weaknesses. Did you think yourself invulnerable? You're not. Not entirely. Attacking you head on would gain me nothing, but I can still do THIS." Stiles screamed in agony as Gerard twisted the crow's neck, breaking it.  
  
"You are nothing now, Mr. Stilinski. I have taken your power from you. I have stolen your strength. You are nothing but a shade. Too weak to stop me and too broken to move on." The small feathered body seemed to fall in slow motion and it hit the ground at the same time as Stiles' knees, the spiritual bond between the messenger of death and the cursed Crow spirit breaking. Isaac ran out of the woods just in time to dive and catch the smaller teen as he collapsed. The Beta made sure to roll their bodies so that he landed on the bottom and held Stiles' limp body protectively to his chest. Derek and Peter took up guard positions in front of them.  
  
"Ah, Derek. You never were quite fast enough to save the ones you care for." Gerard sneered. "Too little, too late, as always."  
  
"Isaac?" Stiles' eyes were wild and unfocused as he realized he was resting against someone's chest and looked up at the Beta in surprise.  
  
"We're here Stiles. You don't have to do this alone." Isaac gently wiped away a drop of blood that had bubbled out of the side of Stiles' mouth when he spoke. He absently rubbed his fingers together, accidentally spreading the crimson liquid as he stared at it in shock. The Crow wasn't supposed to be able to bleed. He turned worried eyes back to the near weightless bundle of skin and bones sprawled on his stomach. In the excitement over Stiles being turned into some sort of super-spirit he had forgotten how fragile he had been physically. "We want to help avenge Erica and Boyd, too."  
  
"If you can't protect pack, be damn sure to avenge it?" Stiles muttered, his eyes drifting slightly to the side of Isaac's ear as his head lolled bonelessly in the cradle of the wolf's shoulder. Ash that seemed to have been a permanent part of his Crow persona crumbled at the contact with the wolf's shirt and flaked off of Stiles' death bleached skin.  
  
Isaac barked a brief humorless laugh, "Yeah, something like that. We want to avenge you too, y'know. It's not right for you to have to do that yourself."  
  
"But… I'm not pack." Stiles gasped breathlessly and Isaac only heard it due to the grace of his werewolf hearing.  
  
"I think you could have been." Isaac whispered back, shifting the other teen to tuck his head against Isaac's neck as he looked up at the others.  
  
Derek growled and bared his fangs at the aged hunter, crouching lower into an attack stance. "You're finished, Gerard. Even without Stiles. There are three of us and you have no weapons."  
  
"Do you ever tire of being wrong?" The old man dug into his pocket and pulled out a flask, slowly twisting the top off. "There were so many interesting things written about the cursed Corvx in our bestiary. How he gains his power, how he loses his power…. and how you can take his power from him."  
  
He raised the flask to his mouth and the scent of animal blood hit their noses as he took a deep pull. Inky black blood dripped down his chin as the air seemed to darken around him. He wiped a finger around the mouth of the flask and drew it across his face, anointing himself with the blood. One line through each eye and a large bloody smile, a mockery of the ash Stiles wore.  
  
Stiles gasped in pain as what remained of his spiritual power was ripped out of him. Isaac watched in helpless distress but could do nothing other than hold the smaller teen as he convulsed and his eyes glazed over any semblance of awareness leaving his body. The Beta jostled his shoulder, hoping for a reaction, but there was nothing. Isaac had seen bodies and aftermath but he had never watched someone die before, Jackson had clawed himself up but survived and he was never there for any of the Kanima's kills. He let out a weak plea, "Stiles?"  
  
"I must say that I'm delighted with the way things have turned out. I couldn't have planned it better myself… and I did, you know. Have a plan, that is." He pulled out his silver pillbox and crushed it in demonstration, showing off and reveling in his new strength. "I am an old man and the unfortunate downside to humanity is vulnerability to illness. The older you are the more vulnerable your body becomes. They told me that I had a year to live. Cancer. I wasn't here only for my daughter, Derek. I was here for you. A weak Alpha, easily used and overthrown." Derek was the first to break the stand off as he snarled and charged at Gerard. He refused to be used by the Argents again. He was easily sidestepped as the hunter moved at phenomenal speed. Gerard shifted his weight and grabbed Derek mid leap to throw him through a nearby tree. The Alpha hit the ground hard, but quickly got up into a crouch and rumbled threateningly deep in his chest, eyes burning red.  
  
"I find, I like it this way much better." Peter leapt to attack next, claws catching Gerard across the chest and then again across the face. Gerard didn't even flinch as he kicked Peter away from him. There was so much power behind the kick that the blue-eyed beta flew through the air like he weighed nothing.  "I can't be hurt. I can't be killed. I can't be stopped."  
  
"Immortality without the curse of being a beast. I'm sickened that I ever considered it." Gerard jumped after Peter, even higher than a werewolf could have managed, and stomped his boot deep into the dirt where Peter's head had been just moments before. He was lucky to have ducked into a roll just in time, but as he spun into a crouch Gerard kicked him in the head, snapping his head back painfully. He was thrown to the ground and Gerard's boot ground down, slowly crushing his throat. "Peter Hale. You killed my daughter. You should have stayed dead. I'm sure death at Derek's hand was far more merciful than what I'll do to you."  
  
Derek lunged at Gerard, forcing him to step back and release Peter, but he was shoved back into a tree as Gerard brutalized him with repeated super speed punches to the head and chest. Derek didn't have enough recovery time between blows to block or break away. Isaac was torn between helping his Alpha and staying with Stiles. The formerly invincible spirit seemed human now, broken, blood still dripping from his nose and the side of his mouth. He winced as Derek's head cracked back against the tree trunk and made his decision. He looked down at Stiles' still body, there was nothing he could do for him now, but maybe he could still make a difference in the fight.  
  
Isaac needed no more prompting, he gently lay Stiles on the ground and jumped onto Gerard's unprotected back with a enraged roar.  He viciously wrenched the old man's head to the side, trying to break his neck. Gerard stumbled back in surprise, letting Derek slide to the ground. The false spirit reached up to grab Isaac and flipped the tall wolf to the ground, slamming him down on top of his Alpha. Peter took advantage of his distraction to impale Gerard on his claws from behind, his hand ripping right through the old man's chest. His grin was feral and his blue eyes glowed with wicked triumph as he heard the hunter's heart stop beating, but his expression quickly dissolved into a confused frown when Argent's body didn't collapse and instead remained standing.  
  
"What an odd feeling." Gerard commented, laying a hand on his now still chest. "I truly am the Corvx now. A creature of both worlds."  
  
Gerard whirled around faster than Peter's eyes could track. His hand got wedged between quickly healing ribs and was wrenched to the side pulling him off balance before the force tore his hand out of Gerard's torso with a sickening squelch of flesh.  The undead hunter grabbed Peter by the head, and slammed him face first into a tree. He tangled his fingers into the Beta's hair and cruelly bashed his head into the tree again and again until the wolf went limp.  
  
Gerard cast his body to the side and stalked back to where Derek had untangled himself from Isaac and was trying to stand. Gerard grabbed Derek by the throat and slid him up the tree until he had lifted the Alpha off of his feet entirely and viciously kicked him in the knee hard enough to shatter the joint. Derek bellowed in pain and went down hard, unable to catch himself when Gerard dropped him.  
  
"You're not going anywhere this time. I'm going to make you watch, Derek. I'm going to kill them one by one in front of you and then I'm going to tear you in half with my bare hands." The interfering wolves temporarily disposed of, Gerard turned to finish off the little shit that had made such a mess of his network of allies tonight. Killing the bird and taking his power wasn't enough to truly finish the Corvx, he wouldn't be satisfied until the teen was destroyed spirit AND body. He was going to put the annoying bastard in the ground for the last time and then he was going to go kill that inept Sheriff and install someone useful into the office.  
  
The only hitch to his plan was that Stiles wasn't where the curly haired wolf had left him, he was gone. Gerard's eyes darted around the clearing. The dead crow was still where he had let it fall. The Corvx was broken, his power had been taken and his body would be remembering that it was dead piece by piece. He would be shutting down and couldn't have gotten far.  
  
There was eerie laughter from the shadows around them, echoing from one tree to the next and Gerard whirled around trying to pinpoint it. The shadows around the clearing twisted and writhed unnaturally, darting shapes surrounding them on all sides, darkening the woods until even supernaturally enhanced eyes couldn't penetrate the void enveloping them. The temperature dropped drastically as wisps of mist curled out of the ground and a soul deep feeling of isolation washed over everyone present. Everything was muffled in shadow and mist, all of their collective senses were useless. The wolves shivered as they let out puffs of visible breath, trying to breathe through the pain. A lazy curl of white exhaled from the direction of Peter's crumpled body reassured the others that the Beta was still alive.  
  
"One thing I've learned from Derek… and Peter before him, is even when you are the baddest thing running around in these woods, you always bring back up." Stiles stepped out of the shadows, appearing unharmed as two unnaturally large crows swooped down and landed on his bony shoulders. They were demonic looking birds, straight out of Lovecraft, too large and vicious to be natural, with jagged beaks that looked more like fangs than anything. Their eyes glowed beta gold, while Stiles' had darkened to a pure black. "You killed three of us, Gerard. Surely you didn't think they'd sit this out."  
  
Derek and Isaac watched in shock as one of the bestial crows cackled mockingly. "So, I see you your undead human spirit and I raise you the specters of two vengeful werewolves. I'll steal a phrase from Derek and say, I'm the ALPHA now."  
  
Stiles shook the birds off and they flapped away to nearby trees to watch the showdown. He was even more powerful than before, and even less human. The shadows practically seethed around him, forming haunting shapes and forms that couldn't quite be perceived before they faded back into the inky gloom. There was an overwhelming impression of wings arching out behind him, formed of nothing but darkness and ether. He truly looked the part of an avenging angel of death. "Do you know what they call a group of crows, Gerard? A murder. They call them a murder of crows."  
  
The air swirled over the tree line, sending the mist whirling as hundreds of crows appeared out of nowhere, circling above them and calling out in a cacophony of mournful cries. The atmosphere grew heavy with a sense of anticipation. "Do you see them Gerard. They're all the souls that have come before me. Every one of them fought for their lost loved ones. They have judged you and found you wanting. This power is not your right, already you abuse it. The power of the Crow is not for the living and it is not for dominance. It is for protection and retribution."  
  
Stiles blurred into a rush of pure shadow and pale skin as he crashed into Gerard, raining down blow after blow, tossing him back and forth across the clearing effortlessly. With each impact and wound the hunter drew more and more on his stolen power to heal and defend himself.  His fever bright eyes sank back into his head and his face grew gaunt, the skin stretching obscenely over his skull. He looked like a walking skeleton as he was destroyed from the inside by abilities that were never meant for his use.  
  
Finally, there came a blow that Gerard couldn't heal. He stumbled back and dabbed at his split lip. "This isn't possible. The bestiary said my power would be absolute. That I couldn't be hurt."  
  
"The bestiary is written by hunters. What could they possibly know of the intricacies of death, the rules of the other side? When Matt abused the power of the Kanima he paid the price. Now that you have abused the powers of the Crow, you will also pay. I was just going to kill you, but you've made it so much worse for yourself. Death is the one true absolute, Gerard, it comes for everyone and no one can escape it. It can occasionally be postponed but eventually everyone dies, everything dies. Civilizations crumble, species go extinct, people pass on into history. One day the sun will go out and the universe will collapse. Death is the most powerful force there ever was and will be, and you just fucked with it."


	6. Chapter 6

Gerard stumbled back, soul deep weakness tearing at his resolve and fear clouding his mind. The noise of the circling birds above reached a crescendo and the spirit forms of Erica and Boyd joined in, their unnatural calls echoing in an unholy mockery of howling. Isaac and Derek shivered, understanding that they were experiencing something that only existed in a hidden place beyond the senses of mortals. As one massive swarm, the birds swooped down and engulfed Gerard until the air was so thick with them that he couldn't be seen. The hunter gave off a long plaintive scream that choked off and cut out abruptly. When the birds had cleared away, Stiles darted forward to grab one particular crow that was flapping in agitation and hopping around ungracefully on the ground.  
  
Stiles lifted the bird and looked it straight in the eyes, ignoring its frantically clawing feet and the aborted thrashing of its wings under his grip. "You've got everything you wanted now, Gerard. You will never die, you will not age, your sickness is gone… but you will never again affect the world of the living; you are nothing more than a servant of Death. You will spend the rest of eternity bringing people to their well deserved afterlife, but will never reach it for yourself. You are beyond powerful, and you will never be able to use it, only gift it to others in need. You cannot communicate, you cannot raise your hand against another innocent, you have no weapons, you have no defenses, you have no allies, you have no family. You are nothing more than a beast, _forevermore_."  
  
He threw the bird into the air and it fled in a wild eyed panic, flapping in fits and starts without any sense of coordination and almost swerving into a tree. Stiles turned to the downed wolves with concern. Peter was out cold, but his skull seemed to be alright.  The lacerations across his face were healing and the fragile facial bones were reforming. Derek was panting with pain, but his eyes were alert. He was sitting against a tree, bloody hands still clutching at his shattered leg as he tried to hold it together enough to heal straight. Stiles nodded at the Alpha and received one in return. Derek's wolf features faded away as he stared up at the birds that were the restless souls of his dead Betas with an expression of profound grief. It was one of his deepest nightmares to be confronted with the ghosts of the people he had failed and who had died because of his actions.  
  
The smaller bird, he was guessing it was Erica, stared back for a moment before swooping down to perch on Derek's good knee and chirrup at him consolingly. He reached out to her with aching hesitation but noticing the blood on his hands he pulled back. He scrubbed at his shirt, getting the worst of it off, before holding out his hand to Erica, who butted up into it like a cat. Stiles smiled, that was just like his Catwoman. Derek stroked her soft head a few times with a look of fragile emotion on his face. "I'm so sorry. If I had never bitten you, you'd both still be alive."  
  
Erica nipped his fingers in harsh reprimand and scuttled up his thigh to burrow under his jacket, leaning her full body against his stomach and staring up at him plaintively. The incredulous look on Derek's face was hilarious as he lifted his arm to avoid crushing her as she snuggled closer. Boyd landed on the now vacated knee and fluffed up his feathers angrily. He flapped a few times, giving a raucous cry. Once his disagreement had been made obvious, he cut off into a gravelly cooing noise. He folded his wings with prim precision, letting his feathers settle again and stared down his Alpha.  
  
Stiles laughed, feeling lighter than he had since before he'd died. His bone deep anger was finally extinguished and justice had been delivered. "Dude, don't apologize. They loved being your Betas. They don't blame you for their deaths. They blame Gerard, and themselves for trying to run. Wolves are stronger in packs. You tried to tell them that and they didn't listen." Erica and Boyd each did a little head bobbing dance, hers was an enthusiastic full body bob and his was more of a curt nod. Derek looked a little overwhelmed with emotional shock as both birds allowed him to stroke their shiny feathers.  
  
With Stiles' help, Isaac propped himself up against a nearby tree with a groan, arm clenched around his still healing ribs. "What happens now?"  
  
"Now? Now, I get to go home." It was obvious from the distant look on his face that he didn't mean the Sheriff's house.  
  
"You're leaving?"  
  
"I can't stay." Stiles crouched down in front of him, just out of arms reach. "Isaac. I'm dead. I don't sleep. I don't eat. I won't age. This?" The wolf flinched as he snapped the fingers on his right hand and waggled them when they reformed instantly. "This isn't healing, it's the fact that there is nothing in this world that can physically harm the dead. I'm a ghost, and my unfinished business has been neatly tied up. I can't stay. The living and the dead are never supposed to coexist."  
  
"Tell that to Peter." Derek grunted from where he was trying not to snivel all over his former Betas. Forgiveness was something that he had thought was unattainable for someone like him. Someone who killed everything he touched and destroyed everyone he cared about.  He knew he would never forgive himself, but hearing that they didn't blame him was an emotional bomb that had devastated his gruff emotional defenses.  
  
"Peter never crossed over. His body died but he tethered his soul to a living thing and dragged himself back. He's not any more dead than someone who flatlined for a minute on a surgery table. He's still a creature of THIS world, and I'm not. I'm running on pure willpower and that won't last much longer. I'm sputtering and soon I'll just burn out on a metaphysical level. I don't like any of you enough to fizzle out of existence because you finally admit that you want me around. I'd apologize, but I'm really not sorry for that. You never know what you've got until it's gone."  
  
"What about Scott?"  
  
"What _about_ Scott?" Stiles repeated, head cocked to the side as he considered Isaac.  
  
"Don't you want to see him one last time?"  
  
"I think that would be a little too cruel. He and I have never had secrets from one another. I've done so much talking over the course of our friendship there's not much else to say and any last words I could think of he already knows."  
  
"You don't care?"  
  
"Care about what?"  
  
"That he chose Allison over you?" To Isaac's shock, Stiles actually huffed out a laugh at that.

"He never had to choose. That boy is singularly incapable of multitasking. He's co-dependent to the Nth degree. I know this because I am too. It's why we worked so well together. Don't for a minute think that if I had managed to con anyone into drinking my spastic kool-aid that I wouldn't be just as devoted. Friendship isn't about being attached at the hip 24/7, it's about knowing that even when you can't be together they will always care about you. It's why Scott can't leave the Allison thing alone, once he cares about someone they're in for life and he can't give up on people. Literally can't."  
  
"Allison will never replace me and she will never know him as well as I do. That's why Scott could throw himself into their disaster of a relationship so thoroughly, because I would never make him choose. You don't cut someone off after more than a decade of friendship just because they go girl-stupid. Allison lost her aunt and her mother and she lost her faith in family, because no matter how evil they were, she loved them. Gerard had her so twisted up she couldn't see straight, and she took that out on you. Their relationship will help her figure herself out and will keep him from going Omega. They'll need each other. You forget that while you, Erica, Boyd and Derek were playing big bad wolf it was the three of us that stood between you and Lydia. Allison was my friend as much as she was Scott's girlfriend. You trusted my word on Peter, so please trust me on Allison. She needs to grieve and she needs to heal, but she's not your enemy. Not anymore."  
  
Both Beta-turned-birds warbled, bobbing their heads again in obvious agreement. If they could forgive Allison for her part in their deaths then the Pack could give her another chance. Erica swooped over to land on Isaac's shoulder and nuzzled his cheek with her head. Boyd squawked meaningfully from his new perch next to Stiles' ear. Erica looked up at him and added her two cents with a hoarse croak and a flutter of her wings. Stiles looked surprised, "If you're sure."  
  
The birds both set about burying their beaks in their feathers, sorting through their plumage and each plucked out a single large primary feather. Erica dropped her feather in Isaac's lap and cuddled up to rub herself against his face again. Isaac picked it up in wonder, twisting it back and forth, admiring the silky black texture and how it faded to a familiar blonde near the edges and fluffy afterfeather, giving it the illusion of a glowing halo. Erica began picking through his hair, removing debris from the fight and gently setting the disheveled curls to rights. Boyd hopped down from his perch on Stiles' shoulder and waddled over to lay his feather on Isaac's thigh. He picked the new feather up as well, comparing them side by side. Boyd's feather was supernaturally black, so dark and light consuming that it shone blue.  Isaac couldn't even pick out the contours of the shaft with his excellent werewolf vision. Isaac's eyes were suspiciously watery as he placed the feathers carefully down and raised his hand to caress Erica, hesitant at first but much more confident when she butted her head into his hand.  "Thank you."  
  
He turned to Boyd and looked unsure if he should try touching the typically standoffish boy. Boyd solved his dilemma by sidling up to his hip and leaning on the now much larger wolf. "I'll take care of them."  
  
While Isaac was distracted by his pack mates, Stiles reached up into the back of his leather jacket and with a twisting motion smoothly pulled a feather of his own out of nowhere. It was much larger than the birds' had been and looked like it came from human sized wings. His feather was a deep whiskey color, matching his eyes, spotted randomly with black dots and the tip was a deep chocolate brown so dark it was nearly black. He handed it to Isaac, who ran reverent fingers over it, before placing it with the others. "Be very careful with those. At a basic level, we're really just ghosts, so those are literally a part of our souls and are probably incredibly powerful, magically speaking."  
  
Isaac looked startled at that, "Your _SOULS_?" He squeaked, horrified, his hand hovering over the feathers but afraid to actually touch them again long enough to hand them back, terrified he might damage them. "You can't give me these!"  
  
Stiles laughed as Erica tugged harshly on a curl and Boyd hopped up on Isaac's knee to glare at him. "No returns, no refunds. It's just something to remember us by, okay? Don't stress out over it."  
  
"But _why_?" Isaac gaped at him, completely overwhelmed. "You never even _liked_ me."  
  
Stiles smiled at him with a strange glint in his eyes and leaned over to kiss him gently, catching the tall wolf completely by surprise. The kiss was short and chaste and heartbreaking in its stillborn promise. "More than you knew. More than I ever would have admitted."  
  
Isaac stared at him baffled. "What? I thought you liked Lydia?"  
  
Stiles smirked. "Is it really that big of a surprise? You told me you had a crush on her once. Think about what's attractive about her. She's at her sexiest when she's showing her intelligence and tearing into someone. Human wallflower Isaac, the one trained at a young age to shut up, fade into the background and take it without standing up for himself. He wouldn't have had anymore of a chance with me than he had with her. God, no! I would have chewed him up and spit him out."

"You however, wild-child, leather wearing, wolf Isaac are a horse of a different color. You're obviously trying a little too hard to be the stereotypical bad boy but once your fangs and claws grew in you somehow managed to find yourself a spine too. That's hot. The cliche is that preachers daughters and Sheriff's sons always go for the dangerous types."  
  
"I don't think that's how that goes." Derek said in a dry tone, unable to keep silent as Isaac was still a bit too stunned to reply.  
  
"Well, it's accurate enough in this case. The story of the gravedigger and the dead boy. It's even more tragic and star-crossed than the one about the wolf who fell in love with a hunter." Stiles straightened up and looked off to the distance where predawn was starting to lighten the sky above the treetops.  
  
"I don't have much time. Since I know you'll both worry about it, let me tell you a cosmic secret… dying sucks but death isn't so bad. Now that isn't an invitation to be suicidal. I don't want to see any of you furry idiots anytime soon, okay? When that day finally comes I want you to look me in the eyes and tell me honestly that you lived as well as you could for as long as you could. Isaac, you've got to make it to 21 at least and find some way to get legally drunk for me, I'm sure Peter could hook you up, he seems like he was a wild child."  
  
"Okay, lets use a sports metaphor, everybody likes those. I would go for the classic 'Life is like a box of chocolates…' but no one likes fuzzy chocolate so the existence of werewolves breaks that one down pretty quickly. Thus, sports. Life is like a lacrosse game, it's messy and exhausting and sometimes the other team totally outmatches you, cheats outrageously, has an in with the ref and kicks your ass pretty much all the way through, but sometimes there's a last minute rally or a hail Mary or whatever. Players get injured or benched or kicked out on a penalty, but you've got to keep playing your hardest right up until the very last buzzer so that when you join your team on the bench you know you did your best even when you lose. I'm out of the game, but I expect you to play through to the end. I'm used to bench warming and -I mean this in the smarmiest way possible- I will be watching over you guys."  
  
Isaac grew worried when Stiles stopped talking and stared off into the trees for a long moment. "Stiles?"  
  
"Shhh. Hang on. I'm trying to think of something awesome to say as my last words. That shit is important. It's how people remember you. I didn't get a chance the first time around. They shattered my jaw early, then I screamed my throat raw and ended up choked to death on my own blood. My brain's kinda stuck on 'Here's looking at you, kid.' or 'Tell my wife and kids I love them.' _AHA!_ I've got it."  
  
He stepped back into the light cast by the first ray of sun breaking through the trees and stretched out his arms theatrically. The leather jacket mimicked wings as the light haloed him. He looked down on the slowly healing wolves with a quirked grin. "I am a leaf on the wind; watch how I soar."  
  
Between one blink and the next he and the Betas were gone, with a quiet flutter of wings. Isaac choked on a weak laugh, tears streaming down his face. "Of course. Geek until the end."  
  
"What?" Derek demanded in a low tone, his voice gravelly from a long stressful night of pain and emotion. It felt like days had passed since they're been running from the hunters.  
  
Isaac sniffed and curled up, hugging his knees to himself. He rested his forehead on his knee to hide how badly he was losing it, but werewolf hearing easily picked up the distress in his voice and heartbeat. "It's from a movie. Serenity. It's about the crew of a spaceship that is more like a family than a crew.  The Captain is a tired military commander who lost everything in a war and is just fighting to keep his small crew alive, like you. He's got one living subordinate still loyal enough to follow his lead, I guess that's me. Two rich kids, one a crazy genius and the other an uptight prick who has never gotten his hands dirty, both who cause the captain no end of problems, totally Lydia and Jackson. There's a mysterious advisor character who no one knows much about, Deaton, an untrustworthy mercenary that only sometimes has their back, Peter, a chipper but naive mechanic with a bleeding heart that gets everyone into trouble and a woman who was trained since childhood to be seductive, manipulative and deadly, Scott and Allison. Their pilot was the energetic, badly dressed comic relief. He wasn't one for the physical fighting but he managed to step up when needed and got them out of some tight situations. Those were his last words before he died saving their asses for the last time."  
  
"So much depth of feeling in a flippant quote thought up on the spot. I knew he was my favorite." Peter spoke up from where he had managed to roll himself onto his back and was laying exhausted, staring up at the light filtering through the branches above them. "I will always regret that I bit Scott that night instead of Stiles. He would have been magnificent."  
  
"Yeah, he probably would have been." Isaac mused quietly, staring at the spot where Stiles disappeared.

* * *

The Sheriff woke up with a groan as his back protested his poor choice of sleeping location. He sat up slowly, peeling his face off the paperwork on his dining room table and looking for whatever had woken him. The heavy knit throw blanket from the living room couch slipped off of his shoulders as he moved. When his eyes focused he saw that the whiskey bottle he had been working his way through the night before had been put away and a glass of water and bottle of aspirin were very pointedly left in their spot. Still half asleep, the Sheriff chuckled. I wasn't the first time he had woken up to this setup. No one did sarcastic passive aggressive guilt trips like Stiles did.  
  
Stiles.  
  
He jolted upright, blanket slipping to the floor as consciousness reasserted itself all at once as he realized that his son, his missing son, was the only one who had spent the time caring for him like this since Claudia had died.  
  
"Stiles."  
  
He jumped to his feet and looked towards the ceiling as if he could see through to his son's room. "STILES!"  
  
He raced up the stairs calling for his son, hope swelling in him. "STILES!"  
  
He pushed open the door at the end of the hall, "STI-"  
  
But there was no one there. The room stood silent and empty, just as it had for the last month, waiting for someone that was never coming home. Waiting, in a holding pattern of stale anticipation, just like he was. There were wrinkles in the blankets where he had taken to laying on the nights he actually tried to sleep. Instead, he usually spent his nights trying to figure out where he had gone wrong, how he had lost the last of his family. In those dark moments he privately worried that the department was right and his son really had run away. He didn't want to believe it, but he had been losing his son for months. Stiles had been pulling away emotionally for a long time before his physical disappearance. Was there more that he could have done, should he have pushed for answers, forced Stiles to tell him the truth? Would that have helped or would it have pushed him farther even faster?  
  
He didn't know how long he stood there fixedly watching his son's empty room, ghosts of shared moments and echoes of laughter and rambled random facts floating through his mind. Finally, he turned away, firmly shutting the door behind him and trudged back downstairs. He stared at the glass of water with the same exhausted blankness, noting with a cop's eye for detail that it was cold enough to have collected condensation.  
  
He slumped over the map, gaze flickering over the grid he had marked out and devotedly checked off. There was a lot of woodland in the Preserve around Beacon Hills and he only had the power to use precinct resources to search so much of it. There was so much of the map left blank compared to the small black crosses that marked searched territory. "Stiles, where are you?"  
  
Movement out of the corner of his eye drew his attention back to the glass that by all rights shouldn't be there. He watched a drop of condensation slowly trickle down the side of the glass and disappear under the bottom of the glass. His brow furrowed as he noticed the base of the glass was red, he lifted the cup to find that it had been placed over a red X, miles away from where his teams had been searching. One arm of the X had been under the rim of the glass and the dripping water had bled the marker into a large ring around the X, further emphasizing its location.  
  
He traced the X, not caring that it stained his fingers red and somehow, deep in that part of his gut where his instincts lived, both his fatherly and cop sides cried out and he just _KNEW_. "Stiles."  
  
Resolve filled him and he reached for his coat and keys. He was bringing his son home.

* * *

Across town the sun rose steadily, just as it always had, as the world continued on and the residents of Beacon Hills went on with their lives…  
  
K-9 Units searched the preserve for the origin of the reported shots fired. It was believed to have been a part of the multiple scene case that the Sheriff was working on and the devoted Deputies wanted to do what they could to reduce his stress level.  
  
A morgue worker quietly catalogued bodies and recorded her autopsy findings from an impaling death, by sword, of all things, if the EMTs were to be believed. She shook her head in bemusement, she had left LA in an attempt to get away from weird deaths.  
  
Three aching werewolves dragged themselves into a burned out house and curled on a dirty old mattress together. Shared experiences and grief allowed them to put aside their vast personality differences and take comfort in each other, just for the moment.  
  
A very special type of veterinary doctor dumped a few last bits of broken glass into a dumpster and he felt a sense of peace and balance return to the energy of the world around him. He looked up at the rising sun with a bittersweet smile on his face and locked the tape and plastic covered door behind him as he returned to his home and to his bed.  
  
A former son and brother and husband, now only a father, sipped resolutely at terrible, scorched hospital coffee, allowing himself this one small gesture of self punishment as he thought seriously about the feasibility of hanging his guns up for good.  
  
A once-and-again Omega wolf sat devoted at his ex-girlfriends hospital bedside, clinging to her as the emotional certainty that he was truly alone for the first time since preschool tore at him. Tears rolled quietly down his face as he mourned the loss of his other half.  
  
A grieving daughter, without a mother to guide her, was caught up in dreams of pain and anger but her sleep was soothed with the warmth of a hand in hers and the phantom press of lips to her forehead and a whisper of, "I forgive you."  
  
A brilliant redhead, often forgotten or overlooked, hesitantly pressed her palm against the scaled one held out in offering. There was a spark of connection and a truly wicked smile bloomed across her face.  
  
THE END?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed my story. It's the first part of 3 and the sequel will be called 'Dead Red Rising'. I'm going to make things both better and worse before we're through.
> 
> Unfortunately, the next two parts are still just outlines, so you'll have to wait for a bit. 
> 
> In the meantime check me out on Tumblr - [Sourdoughwolf](sourdoughwolf.tumblr.com)


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